Off the coast of Spanish island of Lanzarote on November 20-24 was held World Championship-2013 in RC44 class, which was also the fifth and final round of the season, where 5 of 15 participants competed under the Russian flag.
The Slovenian team Ceeref became world champion in fleet racing, and «gold» in RC44 Championship Tour-2013 series in both formats went to British Team Aqua.
The regatta included three trophies. The best team in the RC44 Championship Tour 2013 series was determined in match race, and in fleet racing - the 2013 World Champion and the winner of «gold» on the total results of the season.
The first day was traditionally dedicated entirely to match racing. According to the class rules, in this format the winner was the crew that won the highest number of races not in the world championship but on the sum of all five stages. Each team sailed six races in fairly strong and choppy 12-17 knot winds. "Synergy" (helmsmen and co-owners Valentin Zavadnikov and Leonid Lebedev), last year's champion in this format «one-on-one», did not suffer a single loss, as did the Swedish team Artemis . This result enabled the Russian crew to move upin the RC44 Championship Tour 2013 match race classification from third to second place, having surpassed Katushacrew and lost only one point to Britain's Team Aqua.
«Second place in the Match Race at the end of the season in the prestigious RC44 class is a success- said Valentin Zavadnikov, captain and co-owner of «Synergy». - Last year we became the best in match racing, winning 22 races during the season, in 2013 we also have 22 wins and «silver», and in total in the last two seasons our 44 wins - that's the best result in the series!»
Then it was time for the second part of the regatta - the fleet races (from a common start), which were held from 21 to 24 November. Light and very choppy winds on Thursday and Friday meant that there were only three races on these two days instead of a possible six. This had an immediate effect on the standings, which registered many unexpected results. However, already on Saturday the wind in Lanzarote had stabilized at 8-13 knots and allowed four races. "Synergy finished the penultimate day of the regatta very solid: won one of the racesand finished second in one of them and was the only team to participate in 15 races. and was the only team out of 15 participating teams and was the only 15 participating teams to finish above seventh in each of the four races of the day. The high places helped the Russian yachtsmen to move up to fourth place in the table one day before the end of the regatta.
There were three races on the last day of the World Championship. The first one was won by «Synergy» (her eighth win in the fleet race of the season), moving up to third place in the overall standings after that. She finished in the middle of the fleet in the next race and broke through to fifth position in the final race. At the 2013 World Championships «Synergy» was fourth, two points behind the top-3. In the final table of the 2013 RC44 Championship Tour, the Russian team finished second in the fleet races with their best ever result in this race format.
« We have never risen so high in the fleet races for the whole season, - says helmsman and co-owner of the team Leonid Lebedev. - It took us a year to achieve this result, which was full of excitement and trials. As a result we turned out to be ahead of many great sportsmen. Although, of course, in the Lanzarote regatta we hoped to take a place higher than fourth. Of course, we thought that we are in good shape and we can expect to achieve a good result, which was our aim at».
Maxim Logutenko, Director «Synergy»: «Technically the team works very well, almost perfectly. Tactician Ed Baird does everything absolutely right, and we have a great crew. We will be running in the same configuration in 2014. Coach Ed Reynolds and tactician Ed Bird, whose experience has been at the core of «Synergy's successes» in the last two years, will continue to work with us next season».
