Fifth Russian team for the RC44s

Vladimir Liubomirov's Bronenosec Sailing Team signs up

As the RC44 fleet gear up for the third event of the 2013 RC44 Championship Tour, the Bronenosec Sailing Team owned by Russian Vladimir Liubomirov have joined the class and will compete for the first time at the RC44 Sweden Cup in Marstrand later this month.

Liubomirov is no stranger the international sailing world, having won the prestigious Russian Sailor of the Year Award 2012 and is the current Commodore of the Yacht Club of Saint Petersburg and skipper of the Swan 60 Bronenosec.

Having purchased No Way Back from Pieter Heeerma, the winning boat at the 2009 RC44 World Championship, Liubomirov and his Gazprom-sponsored Bronenosec Sailing Team are keen to further promote professional sailing within Russia. “The successful start of the Gazprom Swan 60 project gave us the opportunity to think about a more, let’s say, technically advanced class. The basic goal is to have several leading St. Petersburg Yacht Club professional teams in the hope of encouraging youth sailing within Russia and raising the profile of professional Russian sailors.”

Liubomirov will be joined for the RC44 Sweden Cup by experienced RC44 tactician Michele Ivaldi whose regular Team CEEREF are unable to compete in Sweden, before Italian America’s Cup veteran Tommaso Chieffi takes over for the remainder of the season. “Tommaso has not only become one of the ideologists of Gazprom Swan 60 class creation but also helped to build an excellent team onboard Bronenosec. I believe Tommaso is one of the most talented sailors and also a bright strategist. I personally learnt a lot from him as a helmsman and it is, in a lot of ways, his merit that we were so successful last year,” explains Liubomirov.

Having worked closely together in the Swan 60 class, Liubomirov and Chieffi have carefully picked a talented team of Italian and Russian sailors.

Bronenosec Sailing Team Crew List

Vladimir Liubomirov (RUS) – Owner/ Driver
Ekaterina Skudina (RUS) – Match Race Helm
Tommaso Chieffi, (ITA) – Tactician
Pietro Mantovani, (ITA) – Bowman
Dmitriy Arsenyev (RUS) – Bowman
Lorenzo Mazza, (ITA) – Trimmer
Alexander Shalagin (RUS) -Trimmer
Francesco Rapetti (ITA) – Pitman
Vladimir Ikonnikov (RUS) -Trimmer
Alberto Barovier, (ITA) – Main Trimmer

Igor Frolov (RUS) – Team Manager
Diego Torrado (ESP) – Boat Captain

Bronenosec Sailing Teamwill combine the RC44 Tour events alongside their racing schedule for the Gazprom Swan 60 project.

The next event of the Championship Tour will be the RC44 Sweden Cup 2013, hosted at the Swedish sailing mecca, Marstrand from the 25 – 29 June.