Rocknrolla Team wins J/70 Russia league Act III
by J/Boats 1 Jun 2018 05:49 AEST
Rocknrolla Team wins 2018 J/70 Russia league Act III © Russian Sailing League
The third act of the Russian J/70 Sailing League took place at the gorgeous, modern facilities of the Konakovo River Club on the northwest side of Moscow for the twenty-seven teams that are participating in the 2018 season series. After a very competitive series with one of Russia's top J/70 teams (Valerya Kovalenko's Arttube RUS1 sailing team) it was Andrei Kirilyuk's talented crew on Rocknrolla Team that won the honors at Konakovo with his supremely talented crew of Dustin Baldeiva, Alina Dotsenko and Alexei Bushuev.
Day One
On the first day of the competition, the Race Committee managed to run only nine races, which meant that each team had only three races to sail on the day. As has been the case for the two events that were held in Sochi on the Black Sea earlier in Acts I & II, there were some pleasant surprises in the standings. In the top six after the first day, the leading crews were Rocknrolla Sailing Team, DC TEAM, Black Sea Team, Konakovo River Club, Region-23 and Sail Lord-Europe.
Day Two
On the second day, the Race Committee crew managed to run fifteen more races for the 27 teams. At the end of the day, there were 24 races in total for eight teams. The first day leader - Rocknrolla Sailing Team continued sail well and confidently. Their skipper- Andrei Kirilyuk- now had 20 points (four 1sts, two 2nds, one 3rd, and 9th place).
Day Three
On the final day, the Race Committee managed to run twelve more races, for a regatta total of 36 races! An amazing achievement considering the tough (e.g. light) weather conditions they had to contend with. However, only 19 teams had 12 races for the regatta. Therefore, eight teams were not lucky, and had to have an average added to their team scores.
As a result, the "rock stars" on the Rocknrolla Sailing Team won- skipper Andrey Kirilyuk, Dustin Baldeiva, Alina Dotsenko and Alexei Bushuev carried the lead from start to finish. Literally - from start to finish! The team won the first race of the regatta and won its final race- a total of six 1sts! Bravo!
In the fight for the podium, there was no question who would get the silver (as they were just two good races shy of winning!). Valeria Kovalenko's Arttube RUS1 team of Alexandra Bozhko, Igor Lisovenko and Denis Rozhkov sailed "lights-out" on the last day. On the decisive day, they showed calmness and composure, collecting a 1-2-1-4 to nearly pull-off an overall win. Their silver only confirmed the championship level of the team and, of course, strengthened their leadership in the overall standings of the 2018 season. In the first three regattas, Arttube RUS1 has finished second each time, amazing consistency, and hard to beat!
Finishing third in the Konakovo event was the Navigator Sailing Team, skippered by Igor Rytov with crew of Anton Sergeev, Konstantin Besputin and Vyacheslav Martynov. It should be noted that the team spent the starting day of the regatta as they were in a coma; an 8-8-3-6 was nothing to write home about, as they say! However, after that they "woke up" and accumulated five 1sts, a 2nd, and 3rd enroute to a meteoric, phoenix-like rise up the standings from 21st place to third overall in the final tally! "Holy moon-shot," said Robin to Batman, "where did those guys come from?!"
Rounding out the top five only one point behind on a tie-breaker at 42 pts each were Leviathan Team, skippered by Maxim Titarenko with crew of Vadim Yahinson, Michael and Maxim Sheremetyev and Pirogovo Team skippered by Yezhkov, the countback going to Leviathan. Just 0.5 points back was Region 23 Team skippered by Eugene Nikiforov.
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