ARTTUBE Wins Russia J/70 Sailing League- Act I

(Sochi, Russia)- The Russian J/70 Sailing League is rolling and Sochi provided a great stage to launch the  most ambitious sailing project ever for the Russian Sailing Federation.  During the three days of racing, Sochi’s weather provided sailors with a lot of surprises- some pleasant and other’s not so pleasant.

The regatta started with great weather on Friday, sunny, windy and the race committee managed to run eight races.  However, the next day, it was beautiful, sunny, clear but no wind.  Plenty of time for the fleet to catch up on their sun tans. It was a real test of patience for all the sailors. No matter how hard the PRO tried, it was not possible to get a race going on Saturday. On Sunday, the forecast promised a decent breeze in the early morning and fading by the second half of the day.  Fortunately, the race committee decided to start at 8am(!) in the morning. Such an early rise was in the interests of everyone in the regatta, and no one grumbled.  The third day of racing was not easy. In the morning the wind was fresh, but then it turned completely sour, with less wind plus the rain. The last batch of teams had to spend over two hours on the water waiting for the start.

With two wins on Friday, the ARTTUBE team’s beautiful young helmsman, Valeria Kovalenko, sailed well all weekend in the challenging conditions to take the overall win for the first regatta. Her team included Alexander Bozhko, Lisovenko Igor, and Sergei Avdonin. The second place team was Yacht Club Seven Feet (Ilya Ermakov, Anna Sannikov, Andrei Aniskin Marat Ahmedov). Then, taking third place was the Lord of Sail Team- Europe (Vyacheslav Ermolenko, Yuri Popov, Natalia Kravets, and Stanislav Georgiev).

Of note, the fitness partner for the League- X-FIT- had the Russian Sailing Federation President (Vladimir Silkin) as the skipper and had a great crew that consisted of Olympic champions in Atlanta 1996- brothers Eugene and Igor Matvienko. This team was the only one to finish in the top three in all races held! Their four 3rd places and one victory in the last race is a strong indication for their future success!

The second phase of the J/70 Russia Sailing League will take place in Moscow on May 20-22.   Russian Sailing League full day video- 6 hr 47 min   Russian Sailing League summary    Facebook- Russian Sailing Federation

The Russian Sailing League general partner is JSC (United Shipbuilding Corporation). The first stage partner is Sochi Grand Marina by Burevestnik Group. The Fitness League partner is a national chain of fitness clubs- X-FIT. General information partner is Championat.com. Media partners of the project include- Match TV, Forbes.com, Vesti.ru, Sport FM, Yachting Magazine and Vodabereg.ru. Regional Informational partners are- Retro FM and Maks-portal.ru. Strategic marketing and branding project come from Agency ViMarketing.  Please contact Anna Mstislav for more info- +8-916-720-45-71 or e-mail.    Sailing photo credits- Andrey Sheremetyev and Elena Otekina   For more Russian Sailing Federation league information