Russian J/70 Winter Series in full swing
by J/Boats 20 Dec 2019 05:53 PST
15-18 December 2019
Russian J/70 Winter Series © National Sailing League
The third stage of the Russian J/70 Sailing League Winter Series just completed last weekend in Sochi, Russia.
The fleet was blessed with wonderful racing weather on the sometimes-tempestuous Black Sea; over the two days of sailing, the sailors enjoyed a total of nine races! Yug Sport FSBI played host to the teams from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Tuapse.
The first race day produced fantastic sailing. The PRO managed to run six races in winds up to 19 kts of breeze. Most races were around 30 minutes duration, so the teams were being pushed to their physical and mental limits, all races being double windward-leeward courses.
"We were very lucky with the weather! On the first day, the wind was from 10 to 19 knots with good waves," said Nikolai Yushkov, Chief Judge for the Winter Series. "We had six races of 30-40 minutes each, which all participants were very pleased with."
The results after the first day produced a very tight standings at the top of the leaderboard, with BARS Sailing team leading with 11 pts, followed by ZID ART Sailing team in second place with 13 pts, and the Battleship Team in third position with 15 pts.
Sunday's wind was not as nice as the first day, so the PRO managed to run three races for the teams. For the first time this season, the winter series awarded both Professional (Open) and Corinthians Division teams. Winning the Professional Division for the first time was Ilya Polishchuk's BARS Sailing team. Taking the silver just behind and also winning the Corinthians Division was Zoran Paunovich's ZID ART Sailing team. Taking the bronze medal on the podium was Cyril Frolov's "Battleship".
Rounding out the top five were Maxim Taranov's Calipso in fourth position and Igor Ignatov's Dobrynya in fifth place.
There are three more events taking place in the Russian J/70 Winter Series in Sochi in January, February, and March 2020.
Find more at nationalsailingleague.com and Facebook page.