Russia scores historic win

As Synergy dispatch All4One at the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Nice

On a day where the leaders at the Louis Vuitton Trophy Nice Côte d’Azur kept pace with one another, it was the Synergy team of Russia that made the day’s headline.

Synergy, led by Polish skipper Karol Jablonski, scored an historic triumph by beating the French/German team ALL4ONE. Synergy got the early jump off the start line when ALL4ONE became entangled with the race committee boat (going OCS and earning a penalty for hitting the committee boat) and then sailed to a victory of 1 minute, 30 seconds.

“This is a great victory and great day for Russia,” said Maxim Logutenko, Synergy team manager. “It’s the first time Russia has won a race on this kind of boat. The start was a present for us, but in the rest of the race we did a good job. Karol did a great job helming and we’re happy with the crew work. We’re getting better and better.”

Only once before has Russia attempted to field a team for the Louis Vuitton Cup: That was in 1992, but the team never made the series. Synergy is here with an eye towards the future and the win was welcome because of the team’s hard luck the past few days.

On Sunday, it led Emirates Team New Zealand before “hitting the wall” just three lengths from the finish line and could only watch as the Kiwis sailed past to take the win. Yesterday, Synergy led Artemis up the first beat until the mainsheet broke. Such are the growing pains for a fledgling team.

“We’ve seen a broad spectrum of opportunities and happenstances. It’s been a good thing for the growth of the team,” said pitman Josh Belsky, the American who’s been on three America’s Cup-winning teams. “We’ve got some good international guys in key positions. We lack some horsepower; we’re probably the smallest team out here physically. But at the end of the day I look back and the owner, Valentin Zavadnikov, has a huge smile. He sees the potential for the future.”

At the top of the scoreboard, Emirates Team New Zealand kept its perfect record intact with a 23-second win in its lone match against Artemis of Sweden. Team New Zealand has 5 points on a 5-0 record.

Britain’s TeamOrigin, the only other undefeated team at 4-0, holds second place with 4 points. Italy’s Azzurra is third with 4 points on a 4-1 record, and BMW Oracle is fourth with 2 points on a 2-2 record.

Fifth is held by Artemis (2-3), which is followed by ALL4ONE (2-6), Synergy (1-4) and TFS – Pages Jaunes (0-6).

The wind conditions were again tricky on the Baie des Anges. The morning offshore flow died during Flight 9 and led to a lengthy postponement before the start of Flight 10. The day’s second flight was started in winds around 5 knots, and it was difficult for crews to pick a side of the racecourse. TeamOrigin’s lone win, with a decisive 2-minute delta over BMW Oracle Racing, came in the trying conditions.

TeamOrigin had drawn the port tack entry to the start, which in these light conditions is normally seen as a fairly disadvantageous end to manage best. The pre-start saw a two minute dial-up before some interesting manoeuvres deep in the start box. Coming close to the start Ben Ainslie managed to keep the pressure on the American team forcing them to take the right hand side. Brady started at speed on port tack near the committee boat, TeamOrigin happy to have won the left had lost some time in the process during the last tack onto starboard just before the gun.

“It is quite often a difficult decision to make whether you want to lose a lot to get the side you want or whether you accept a close start on the un-favoured side. Today was like that. We had to make sure we didn’t lose too much in winning the left, we were a bit late and slow off the line but it turned out to be the right decision,“ commented TeamOrigin skipper, Ben Ainslie. "We liked the left off the start but at one point we weren’t sure if we were going to go for it because it looked like it would be too hard to get and then the pre-start changed and we were able to push for it."

It became clear within a couple of minutes that the wind was significantly better on the left. Rob Greenhalgh, TeamOrigin strategist/traveller, the wind eyes of the team who spends his time near the top of the mast, made the following analysis of the key moment of the race from his point of view: “The wind was really unstable during the half hour or so period before the start and we weren’t really sure which side was going to be favoured. We decided quite close to the pre-start that the left looked marginally better and as the pre-start developed we felt stronger about it. Ben managed to get the left for us and sure enough it was better but we certainly didn’t expect it to be quite so powerful. The rest of the race saw us always in better wind.“

Greenhalgh is one of two new faces in the TeamOrigin afterguard compared to the line-up in Auckland, at a time when Greenhalgh and navigator Ian Moore were both absent due to Volvo Ocean Race commitments - Greenhalgh with Puma, Moore with Green Dragon, resulting in Chris Draper and American AC veteran Peter Isler standing in for them.

"We are a lot quieter going round the course than it was in Auckland," says Ainslie. "Some of the guys who’ve come in new to the team have fitted in really well and are doing a great job - so that has also helped and been a big difference. Like a lot of these teams it takes time to build those relationships. The most encouraging thing I think is that the team is getting on well and everyone is enjoying sailing together and good communication and that is half the battle with these teams."

The interrupted schedule means teams are struggling to keep their consistency from day to day with the sometimes long stretches of inactivity.

“The toughest thing in this kind of racing is one day you sail two or three races and the next day you don’t sail at all,” said Azzurra skipper Francesco Bruni. “The key for our team is to keep our rhythm going, keep our concentration up.”

The last flight of the day was abandoned due to lack of stable wind and will be sailed tomorrow, Thursday, along with the final two flights of Round Robin One and the two partially sailed flights from earlier in the week.

Current standings:

Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) - Dean Barker, 5-0
TeamOrigin (GBR) - Ben Ainslie, 4-0
Azzurra (ITA) - Francesco Bruni, 4-1
BMW ORACLE Racing (USA) - Gavin Brady, 2-2
Artemis (SWE) - Paul Cayard, 2-3
ALL4ONE (FRA/GER) - Jochen Schuemann, 2-4
Synergy Russian Sailing Team (RUS) - Karol Jablonski, 1-4
Team French Spirit (FRA) - Bertrand Pacé, 0-6

Tomorrow’s schedule
Flight 12
M1: Emirates Team New Zealand vs. BMW Oracle Racing
M2: Artemis vs. TeamOrigin
Flight 13
M1: TFS – Pages Jaunes vs. Synergy
M2: ALL4ONE vs. Azzurra
Flight 14
M1: BMW Oracle Racing vs. Artemis
M2: Emirates Team New Zealand vs. TeamOrigin
Flight 8
M2: BMW Oracle Racing vs. Synergy