New force to be reckoned with

A Russian team recently won the IMS Offshore Worlds, now another is trying its hand at the Breitling Med Cup

Russians - they're turning up everywhere. Seven boats took part in the Dragon European Championship this year. A genuine three boat Russian team competed in the Rolex Commodores' Cup. The biggest success story recently was Sergey Shevtov's Grand Soleil 42R Yugtranzit , recently winner of the IMS Offshore World Championship at Rolex Baltic Week.

This week sees the debut of a Russian team on the Breitling MedCup circuit for the TP 52s. After a small hitch with her build at Latini Marine, near Rome, when the oven caught fire, the new Rusal Synergy emerged from the shed only on 16 August after a second deck had to be built for her. With delivery to Athens, the team have had just four days of preparation time prior to the Athens Regatta.

Last year Latini Marine built Alessandra Pirera's Orlanda and like her the new Rusal Synergy is a design by Botin Carkeek, save that she is a 2006 generation, version two TP 52. The Russian boat is in fact a sistership to Steve and Fred Howe's Warpath.

For the Russian team the TP 52 marks a substantial step up from the Grand Soleil 40 they have been compaigning with some success over the last couple of seasons. Last year for example they won the IMS division at the Yacht Club Costa Smerelda's Rolex Settimana delle Bocche.

The Synergy campaign is run by Andrey Nicolaev, who is skipper on board while his brother Alexey is tactician. However the team's backer is Valentin Zavadnikov, a politician high up in the Russian government (hs is currently Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Industrial Policy). Although born in Ukraine, Zavadnikov heralds from the Saratov region of Russia as do the Nicolaevs. (The city of Saratov is at the southern end of the Volga river some 400 miles southeast of Moscow, to the north of the Caspian Sea).

In addition to Zavadnikov's contribution for this season the team have sponsorship from two companies, their major backer being the giant Russian Aluminium company, Rusal, the second largest producer of aluminium in the world - a $4 billion company co-founded by Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.

Over the last seasons, the team have based themselves out of Civitavecchia on the coast near Rome. "For us it is not easy to keep the boat in Russia when we use it in Italy and the Mediterranean," explains Andrey Nicolaev, who's background as a sailor involved being part of the short lived Russian Red Star challenge for the 1992 America's Cup. "Anyway it is hard to moor a yacht in Russia. There are two problems - firstly with customs and secondly with mooring places. It is okay maybe for motor boats, but in the Black Sea there are only small marinas."

In Saratov the mighty Volga is wide and because of this it is home to is the third oldest yacht club in Russia (dating back to a pre-revolution 1876) - the first and second being in St Petersburg and Riga (now in Latvia).

Crew-wise, the Russian team is far away from being the fully professional affair found on the TP52s they compete against. On Rusal Synergy some are professionals, however others are professional sportsmen (one for example is an Olympic rower - a popular source for America's Cup grinders) while the others are enthusiast amateurs. Nicolaev says he is working on the theory that top athletes from other sports can be more readily turned into top racing sailors than other average mortals. "We are not just sailing sportsmen - we don’t know now if this will work, but we will give it a try," he admits.

Obviously up against stiff competition aboard other boats - the Coutts, Cayards, Barkers, etc - Nicolaev is under no illusion as to what he is up again. "For us it is very hard. It is a great honour to participate with these guys. We know what we are up against. Even so we would like to win."

Geographically six of the crew come from Saratov, but otherwise Nicolaev says they draw their crew for the TP 52 from a pool of 18-20 sailors from all over Russia. He has deliberated tried to get a spread of sailors from all over the country (some come from as afar afield as Vladivostock) to help spread the word about yacht racing - no mean feat in a country of 143 million inhabitants. "We would like to have more professionals and get more popularity for sailing in Russian society," he says.

While he is using a pool system this year, Nicolaev says that it is only temporary and next year they will have a regular squad on board. "It's the only way to get good results," he says.

Unlike a majority of the TP 52 campaigns which only compete on the Breitling MedCup circuit, Nicoleav says his team plans to get their money's worth from the boat. They are competing this week in Athens this week, although at this stage it is more a case of getting the boat around the course having only had four days to prepare for the regatta following her launch. They will then compete in the final Breitling MedCup event for the TP 52s in Ibiza. Once the TP 52 season closes Nicolaev says they have a program that takes in the Rolex Middle Sea Race before heading to the USA in December ready for Key West and the SORC next spring. "Only doing two races this year in our new 52 is not good for us," says Nicolaev. "We must sail more races in order to do a good job with our training." They will then return to the Breitling MedCup in 2007.

So will the Russians be able to take on the hotshots? We suspect it will not be until next season that they will make much impression.