The PROyachting Award has been around for 4 years now, and each award ceremony attracts more and more people. On November 14 about 300 guests attended the closed Moscow club SPY to welcome the winners.
During the event PROyachting company traditionally awarded the leaders of the weekly series of the Wednesday Night Race and Tuesday Warm Up Race. The Marine Chronograph Manufacture watch by Ulysse Nardin brand became the prize. «However, the highlight of the evening was the announcement of the» Sailing Man of the Year.
The core team «Tavatui» - Pavel Kuznetsov, Evgeny Neugodniukov and Egor Konyukhovsky - took home to Yekaterinburg a crystal sailing boat and a silver corkscrew, with which they will be able to open the champagne at their next successful regatta.
2017 was a very busy year for «Tavatuy»: the team won the World Championship in Melges 32 class, participated in Match Cup Russia on M32 winged catamarans (and made a famous coup during these competitions). The latter event must have influenced the decision of the organizers to give the award for» for the «Sailing Event of the Year to Match Racing in the M32 class. A capsize is an unpleasant and dangerous affair, but it adds to the spectacle of the competition, no need to hide it.
In the category «Team of the Year» unquestionably won «Bogatyr» Igor Rytov, who won the 2017 Rolex Middle Sea Race.
For the first time in the history of the 600-mile offshore race, an all-Russian crew managed to become the absolute leader in the overall standings. Another Russian participant in the Rolex Middle Sea Race, Nikolay Drozdov's Rosatom Sailing Team, walked away from the event with the award for «Breakthrough of the Year». New to sailing, they not only finished a tough race in which two-thirds of the fleet withdrew early due to damage to their yachts of varying degrees of severity, but also took first place in their group in the ORC class.
For his support of yachting and preparation of the Olympic team Vladimir Plotka was awarded by «Patron of the Year award». He oversees the construction of a sailing school in Sevastopol and a training base for sailing teams.
« Olympian of the Year» became the Head coach of Russian national sailing team Natalia Ivanova who (to quote the press release here) «puts time and extraordinary efforts into development of the Olympic team in difficult conditions and at the lack of financing».
«Zoya Nikolaevna Mordvinova, the Children's Coach of the Year», with an impressive 40 years of coaching experience.
Other PROyachting honorees include «discovery of the year» Karina Telyants and «teapot of the year» John Warren. Host of the program «Let's go, let's eat! » on NTV diluted the gastronomic tour to Sochi by participating in a regatta. No, not as a cook - GP 26 yachts, racing in weekend regattas, simply do not have a galley (as well as other facilities).
Publishing house Inflight became the best in the nomination «Sailing coverage» for promotion of yachting among the readers of in-flight magazines of S7 and «Aeroflot».
And as a closing chord let's leave here «Photo of the year» by Vyacheslav Motorkin, calculated as a result of voting on Facebook and Instagram.
