PEK: SPORT Wins Act VI- Russian J/70 Sailing League

Moscow QPRO Sailing Team Leads Overall Series
(Nizhny Novgorod, Russia)- Lying 400 km east of Moscow’s famous Red Square, the confluence of the famous Volga and Oka Rivers and the famous Kremlin fort and Chkalov Stairs overlooking the sailing area, was the setting for the sixth regatta in the Russian J/70 Sailing League. The city of Nizhny Novgorod (once called Gorky- in honor of the famous Russian novelist- Maxim Gorky) was initially famous as “the Detroit of Russia” and is now home to three-dozen high-tech R&D centers and is, essentially, the I.T. center of Russia (even INTEL has 500 engineers in R&D working there!).

Eleven teams from across Russia showed up for the penultimate regatta at Nizhny in the season-long Russia J/70 Sailing League that started out in April at the famous Black Sea resort of Sochi and will finish the season there for their Grand Finale. Those teams included Koreg Sailing Team (Sochi, helmsman Oleg Kuzmin), QPRO Sailing Team (Moscow, Egor Zuev), CARAMBA! (Moscow, Dmitry Kuznetsov), Calypso (Tuapse/ Moscow, Vladimir Shishkin), Traktor Sailing Team (Chelyabinsk, Eduard Podshivalov), PEK: SPORT (Moscow, Maxim Kuzmin), Ugar Crew (Moscow, Alisa Kirilyuk), ZidArt Sailing Team Moscow, Zoran Paunovich), Team Nizhny Novgorod Children's River Shipping Company (Nizhny Novgorod, Danila Lysanov), Tramontana (Nizhny Novgorod, Yuri Luzhbin), and the Winners Sailing Team (St. Petersburg, Victor Kapitonenko).

The sailing teams were treated with good sailing conditions all weekend-long.  Each team sailed 27 races, seven on Friday, thirteen on Saturday, and thirteen more on Sunday!

The winner of the regatta was Moscow’s PEK: SPORT, which was skippered by Maxim Kuzmin; the crew consisted of Vadim Filatov, Dmitry Ievlev, Dmitry Popkov and Konstantin Besputin.  This team is unique. They joined the Russian J/70 Sailing League at the fourth stage of the season in Pskov (Krivsk).  They won the regatta, repeated their winning performance in St. Petersburg, and now they did the same in Nizhny Novgorod!  An amazing performance!

The first day PEK: SPORT did not perform well. But then, they found their form and after the second day of sailing ended up in 2nd overall in the provisional rankings.  Then, after another solid performance on Sunday’s finale, they had six 1sts and 14 more podium finishes!

Taking the silver for the regatta was another Moscow team- QPRO Sailing Team with skipper Egor Zuev, and crew of Denis Rozhkov, Alexander Grishunin and Vyacheslav Bukin.  While leading the regatta after Saturday with a phenomenal four-race winning streak, they could not keep it together on Saturday.  Ultimately, they finished 11 pts back behind Maxim and her crew of sailing mercenaries.

The bronze was taken by the Sochi KOREG Sailing Team, skippered by Oleg Kuzmin with crew of Inal Berbekov, Artem Avetisyan, Andrei Ignatenko and Yulia Dmitrienko. The gap between silver and bronze was only 4 points.

“On the final day of the regatta, a stable western wind blew with a force of 12 knots,” said Chief RC PRO Dmitriy Shatagin. “The race was held at a high pace. I managed to run 13 starts, and it was very good! At the end of the final day, the protests were again brought to the finish line, but many of them were, shall we say, "dismantled" between the skippers themselves. In general, all three racing days were successful, and with excellent weather. Impressions are positive."

"This is the third regatta for us in the league and the third time we win," said Vadim Filatov of PEK: SPORT. “Dmitry Ievlev and I have been engaged in rally-raids for six years, and now sailing became the next page of our lives. And, we never regretted that we came to yachting!! This is the kind of sport where emotions overwhelm, where you start every 20 minutes in a new race. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose! It turns out that throughout the racing day something new is always happening. This is an unforgettable experience. An unforgettable holiday! There are not enough words- many emotions. I'm ready to scream, laugh! The sailing is so cool!”

“It was not easy- the weather conditions did not allow us to relax,” said the helmsman of the team-winner- Maxim Kuzmin. “In the first race day, the wind changed very much, in the second the wind also made its own corrections. But, the third day did not disappoint me, it was even, though weaker, than the day before. The race was significantly influenced by the current: it was possible to make a very big mistake at the start, well, in the course of the race, too, it was necessary to take this moment into account ... The regatta was chasing 11 teams, which is a record for the Premier Division. Plus, some of the teams have intensified their efforts with new crew for the Premier Division. Accordingly, the intensity of the struggle was high, and nothing was clear until the finish. Only 5 minutes before the award, we learned that we became champions!”

"We went through the regatta well," says Yegor Zuev, from the Moscow-based QPRO Sailing Team. “The rivals are strong, the fleet is very even. The water area is non-standard, with a strong current, with good wind conditions. Everything is great, but I would like to see that in the Premier Division there was direct refereeing on the water, which would allow making the right decisions immediately on the water.”

"The race was interesting, tense," says Oleg Kuzmin, the coach of the Koreg Sailing Team from Sochi. “The fight was going on until the last day, until the last start. We tried to show the best result, and won third place. The water area is not easy: the current, which always makes its own corrections, and the wind here is also complicated- unstable. The first race day was generally something for everyone! But, even in these conditions, we tried to show everything we could. As for our rivals, with each stage they are all more serious and serious. Many tried to strengthen their teams, so in one of the teams they recruited the current Melges 32 World Champion and the Melges 20 European Champion- Konstantin Besputin. Is this a world-class level here in the middle of Russia- on the Volga River in Nizhny!? The panel of judges worked remarkably well, the race was going well, without delay. Thanks to the hard work of the judges, good fellows.”

The Grand Finale for the Russian J/70 Sailing League takes place in Sochi (site of the Winter Olympics) from October 19-22.

So far, six stages have been held in Sochi, Sevastopol, Moscow, Pskov (Krivsk), St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod. After the 6th stage, the leading troika has not changed for the overall series. Leading at the current time is the QPRO Sailing Team from Moscow, followed by the KOREG Sailing Team from Sochi in second place, then the CARAMBA! Team from Moscow in third, the CALYPSO Team from Yuapse/Moscow in fourth and the PEK: SPORT Team from Moscow in 5th place!

The organizers wish to “Thank” the government and the Ministry of Sport of the Nizhny Novgorod region, the sailing association of the Nizhny Novgorod region, the hosts for this stage- the YC Leto and the Tramontana Sailing Club, as well as the Nizhny Novgorod Children's River Shipping company and, personally, the Commander Vladimir Ivanovich Dyakov.

Watch some fantastic “3D” virtual tracking of all the races here- incredibly well done software by Tracker Regatta3d.ru.  Here’s one example to view

Watch a highlight video of the Nizhny event here  Follow the Russian J/70 Sailing League on Facebook  For more Russian J/70 Sailing League informationAdd to Flipboard Magazine.


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