Circular plans

Russia will be included in the world super -series of sailing regatt

On Wednesday, Paris announced the creation of a completely new cycle of international sailing regatt. Participants are the best world professional groups, united in the World Association of Sailing Teams ( WSTA ), in partnership with Louis Vuitton, the title sponsor of the prestigious sailing regattal in the last 25 years, in particular, the qualifying cycle of America's Cup.

The World Association of Sailing Teams included teams that previously chased in the qualifying series to America's Cup: K-Mhallenge (France), BMW Oracle Racing (USA), Emirates Team New Zealand (New Zealand), Mascalzone Latino (Italy). As well as the Russian team "Synergy", Artemis (Sweden), French Spirit (France). At the same time, Synergy became a privileged participant in WSTA and will be able to influence the policy it pursued. For the first time, the Russian -speaking team will take part in sailing competitions of such a high level along with the strongest sailing crews of the world.

Now Synergy is completing its fourth season in the grade "Transpak 52", and the races won for the strongest teams for Russians are no longer uncommon. “We understand that we will start with the last places again, but we will grow slowly but surely,” says Captain Valentine Zavadnikov. “Our task is to build a professional team at a new level for the country.

Now, when there was an opportunity to enter such a large -scale project, we counted this for ourselves correct. This is an invaluable experience and the basis for future growth. "

The new regatt cycle will be called Louis Vuitton World Series. The same concept and format are taken as the basis as those who held in February 2009 in Auckland Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. The success of that competition convinced the participants to repeat the recipe by creating a new race program. 10 teams after the draw will resist each other in successive fights in two pairs of identical yachts. These yachts were previously used in the LV Cup in 2007. The principle of "one on one" (match-racing) will provide a show that is understandable to most spectators.

At the current stage of the development of Russian sailing, it is impossible to collect a competitive Russian -speaking crew for participation, for example, in the America Cup. Meanwhile, Louis Vuitton World Series is not quite America's Cup and not even qualifying competitions, this is rather an understandable model for selecting competitive teams. For "synergy" these races are the opportunity to get acquainted with new boats. The main goal of the team: to save the basic Russian -speaking crew with the involvement of individual legionnaires. Co -owners of "synergy" are sure - there is no need to take "stars" in order to immediately take first places. “The latter are still arranged for us,” the baiters emphasize. “We are ready to grow: if we are the 10th, 9th, 8th, 7th, then it will be a normal road. But at the same time we go to the project with Russian yachtsmen, with our own knowledge, with a team that speaks Russian.”

Several competitions will be held per year, the closest of which will be held in Nice, Auckland, Hong Kong and New York.

The press conference on the start of the project will be held on September 8 in Paris.