SB20 Russian Open Championship starts with a bang

by Ivan Bidzilya on 24 Aug 2013 The SB20 Russian Open Championship regatta kicked off in style on 23rd August with four races completed in light winds. Competition was fierce right from the start. Each race brought up a new leader so consistency proved to be winning formula. Now, with first results posted, early leaders made a first step towards overall victory. But a new day may change everything. First and fifth teams are separated by only 10 points.

On the first racing day of the Russian SB20 Open Championship the wind played tricky games with thirty teams on the course. Race committee managed to fill the day’s program by completing four races in 8-10 knots of N-EN winds. 'First three races went smooth but during the fourth the wind started to veer so we had to move the marks after the start', commented the PRO Vladimir Komel.

From the competitors point of view it was a slightly different game. Almost every team had experienced their highs and lows. So in the end of the day consistency proved to be a key success factor. Given the constant wind shifts and holes in was really hard to achieve.

One can only imagine that for the guest helmsman living through the day was twice as hard as for the native competitors. 'The waters and winds here are really different from what we are used to', says ex-Portuguese Champion Ramada Paulo, 'the boat seats deeper in the water making steering more tricky'. 'Despite unfamiliar conditions and a new boat, today’s races went well more of less', comments J80 World Champion Fran Palacio, 'wind strengths matched our boat settings so we could keep up with the leaders'.

However the guests lived up to their strong CV’s and showed great speed on the course. Actually, in the top-three there is only one Russian crew. Leading in the open ranking now is 'Nordmarine' mixed team of Uvarkin Valentin, Valeriy Zatsarinsky (a member of the famous RC44 Synergy Team) and Elena Smirnova. Although they started the day with eighth place, further they went on with third, first and second.

'We really managed to read the shifts today', comments Valeriy Zatsarinsky, 'after the second race the wind started to shift to the right but not all of the teams noticed that. I don’t think that good result here can be achieved only by good local knowledge. It is attention and concentration that really pays off'.

In the end of the day each team from first to tenth still has really good chance to move to the top. When the right to drop the worst result will come into play even the ninth placed team of multiple Russian match race champion Evgeniy Neugodnikov may appear in the lead. Today their good performance was screwed up by DNF.