NEWS

Federation Cup in the Canaries

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From November 6 to 11, Lanzarote (archipelago of the Canary Islands) hosted the Federation Cup for the third time. Taganrog RUS7 team was the founder and ideologist of the event, while the general sponsor is Anywayday.com. The competition, held in the yacht class, was very representative. J/80, the competition in the class of yachts was very representative - 24 crews from several Russian cities took the start, some of them were mixed: yachtsmen from Belorussia, Spain, Latvia, Ukraine and France (at that Belorussian sportsmen also formed two national crews).

The list of well-known sailors participating in the race was amazing with their names: such a set of stars would do honor to any level of regatta.

There were European champions and Russian champions, many times champion of France, winners of Gold Cup in Dragon class and winners of St. Petersburg «White Nights Sails». This alone said that the regatta was going to be «hot».

This time it was different in some novelties, for example, a separate parallel classification for non-professional yachtsmen was introduced, the so-called «Corinthian» division. The main part of the regatta was to be held in fleet racing format, but match races for several strongest teams were scheduled for November 8. Alas, the attempt to have a fully completed programme on that day was not successful: the judges managed to run only seven qualifying flyts before the end of the daylight hours, which ended the match race. The final allocation of places was not affected by the match race.

But back to the start of the races. The first days of the regatta started with rather weak winds, contrary to expectations. For example, November 5, the day before the start of the race, not all crews could properly train on the water - the wind was not stronger than 3-5 knots. Approximately the same was at the start of the official start of the regatta (November 6): the normal wind speed of 10-12 knots blew just half an hour before the start of the first race of the Cup. Under such conditions, the first to reach the finish line was a joint Spanish-Russian crew, DeSafio Russia Espania 2012, led by Hugo Rocha - a bronze medallist of the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Two Russian crews were second and third: one from Omsk-Ekaterinburg (competing in «Corinthian division» ) with the experienced Evgeny Neugodnikov and Max Taranov, the other - from Moscow Yacht ClubPIRogovo с Alexander Ezhkov and Andrei Kirilyuk.

The second race turned out to be the exact opposite of the first one - the wind dropped and the racers had to look for other tactical solutions and change boat settings. In the difficult conditions of a weak wind three crews even failed to finish. However, good luck went to both RUS 7 crews - the first was Anywayanyday RUS7-2 with the Igor Lisovenko the rudder, the second was the first boat of the same team with Kirill Podolsky и Sergey Shevtsov. The crew from Omsk and Ekaterinburg came in third, thus becoming the leaders of the regatta according to the results of the first day. Evgeniy Neugodnikov commented on this result: «Since last year start of the regatta was exactly the same, our today's result cannot be called just luck. We used last year's experience, got off to a good start, got to the mark in ten and then just tried not to lose speed».

Dmitry Zaritsky with his usual wit summed up the first day as follows: «Yegburg burns, Taganrog goes».

The second day was extremely busy for the racers - strengthened wind allowed the sailors to race in full force, while the wave-covered water area allowed them to show their class on the almost smooth water. In the first race luck favoured joint Spanish, Ukrainian, Latvian and Russian crew, which was led by Fedorov. Rajko Alvarez - thereby the guys were able to rehabilitate themselves for their unsuccessful performance of the first day, when they couldn't finish the second race at all. In the same race was disqualified the team, in which we know from the team «Synergy»Maxim Logutenko - but in the second race, she completely justified herself by winning the difficult distance with flying colors. The third place in the final race of the day allowed these guys to enter the top ten as well, taking ninth position.

As for the first three crews of the regatta, almost nothing has changed - except that a mixed Russian-Spanish crew managed to take first place, pushing Taranov and Neufodnikov to second (while the latter still remain leaders in the «Corinthian» standings). Third place was still taken by the second team from RUS 7.
After «match race day», when some of the participants were resting and some were competing in gambling matches, the day of November 9 proved to be very difficult, as the wind speed reached 20 knots. Not all the teams were able to adjust to the weather properly, and there was a serious change in the leading three. Evgeny Neugodnikov's
crew (silver medallist in last year's Cup) failed to resist the pressure: two very unsuccessful arrivals (15 and 18) and the crew dropped from the top three to sixth place at once, not even third place in the second race of the day saved their position.

Regatta leader - DeSafio Russia Espania 2012 crew(bronze medallist of last year's Cup) had a brilliant day: coming in third in the first race, the guys managed to win both final races of the day.

Now, the DeSafio team looked unshakable: there was almost no chance of beating them on the last day of the competition.

And so it was: DeSafio Russia Espania 2012 celebrated winning the first race on Sunday, and simply didn't go into the second race - they'd had enough margin of victory. The second place was taken by Spanish-Ukrainian-Latvian-Russian crew under command of experienced local yachtsman Raico Alvarez. The third place went to the second crew of RUS 7 with Igor Lisovenko at the helm. In the «Corinthian» division, the victory was won by the crew of thePIRogovo yacht club, headed by Alexander Ezhkov.

What can we say as a result? Probably only one thing - International won.

It wasn't the Third, which was disbanded Stalin in 1943, and not the Fourth, created Trotsky in 1938. The Yachtsmen's International won, but it's time «the Russian faction» played a bigger and bigger role in it. Otherwise we will really have to sing in Spanish.

Illustrations: Irina Belusa (c)

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