Twenty yachts and the Orion referee ship take part in the All-Russian sailing competition. Athletes compete in five scoring groups along the route Sevastopol – Balaklava – Yalta – Donuzlav – Chernomorskoe – Sevastopol. The weather forecast is favorable. the race will probably also have night crossings, as the shortest distance is 25 miles, the rest are from 50 to 100 miles. The race will be very difficult with high competition among crews. There are representatives of Novorossiysk, Krasnodar, Gelendzhik, Moscow, Bakhchisarai, Krasnodar, Simferopol, Samara, Surgut, St. Petersburg, Sevastopol in the combined crews of yachts. Valery Zubkov, President of the Sevastopol Sailing Federation, said that the greatest number of crews were put up by the Black Sea Higher Naval School named after Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov. And in each of them cadets from Vietnam will make their sailing debut. The composition of the participants is diverse. Very serious athletes participate – masters of sports of international class, honored masters of sports.
From the berth of the Grafskaya pier, the yachts departed “under the motors” – the breeze was barely guessed in the bay. The calm test for yachtsmen is no less difficult than sailing in a storm. The senior sailing coach of Sevastopol claims that in every race the hardest test is complete calm. Before Balaklava, the wind did not really help yachtsmen. Veteran of the Sevastopol sailing sport Alexander Taranenko is participating in the judging panel of the competition. He was the winner of this race in 1998. The yacht “Aya” under his command won the title of the fastest in the Black Sea, received the “Blue Ribbon”. The complete calm at the Grafskaya pier gave way to a light wind. The athletes raised their sails and waited for the signal to start. Only at the exit from the Sevastopol Bay the breeze got stronger, which allowed all the yachts to successfully overcome the starting line at 11 o’clock. In the evening of the same day, the athletes moored at the Nazukin embankment in Balaklava. The night is to rest. Start in the morning. The wind grew stronger every hour. Here all the skill of the captains and crew members was already needed. The sailing regatta of cruising yachts “Crimea Cup 2020” has arrived safely in Yalta. The races take place in a sharp wrestling match in various wind conditions.
After two stages in their racing groups, the leading crews of the yachts “Alexandra” – captain Inga Malysheva, “Juno” – captain Pavel Cherpita, “Berkut” – captain Ilya Drapov, “Iskra” – captain Vladimir Donov. The next day at 12:00 the yachts departed from Yalta to Donuzlav Lake to complete the longest stage of the regatta 115 nautical miles. On the morning of 3 August, the race leaders entered Lake Donuzlav. Then they will have to start to the Black Sea, and from there the final stage to Sevastopol will begin.
The crews of Flamenco yachts – captain Eduard Kuznetsov, “Aya” – captain Valery Zubkov, “Miami” – captain Aleksey Rezinkin and “Alexandra” – captain Inga Malysheva claim the main prize of the Blue Ribbon of Crimea regatta.
