The racing season 2023 was opened by the professional sailing team Tenzor Team in Turkey, where the 6-stage series of regattas Tour of Turkiye 2023 started. The first stage was held from March 10 to 12 in Gocek.
The popularity of the series has been rapidly gaining momentum over the past two years, and in the 2023 season, 18 teams from Turkey, Italy and Russia have already become participants in the first stage of the competition.
Tenzor Team showed up at the regatta in the main team staff: Andrey Pushkin on the helm, Daniil Odintsov as a tactician, Alexander Andrianov as a trimmer, and Nikita Ushkov as a bowman.
As for the rivals, there is a the current champions of the Tour of Turkey series from the Turkish teams — the EKER KAYMAK team led by Ahmet Eker, which has the bronze medal of the European Championship 2022, participation in numerous international series in Monaco. Two more strong teams – Ameera Jet by Emir Icgoren and Denizcik by Gulboy Guryel were also among the contenders for the podium: both crews in the 2022 season completed the European Championship in the 15th and 25th places, respectively, out of almost 90 boats of the fleet. Serious rivals were also represented by Russian teams: Eyed Mushrooms, “Russian Bogatyrs” and Hubex.
The first race day ended with a victory for the crew of Andrey Pushkin’s Tenzor Team. Three arrivals in the top three (2-3-1) brought the team 6 points and the best result of the day. The EKER team finished the day two points behind, also having one race won, and another strong Turkish team Ameera Jet of Emir Icgoren closed the top three of the day with 12 points. The next three positions were shared by Russian crews, two of which – “Russian Bogatyrs” and Hubex received penalty points for a false start.
As the Tenzor Team tactician Daniil Odintsov said: “There were two difficult starts, where by coincidence we found ourselves in a fight for the pin with friendly Russian crews – “Russian Bogatyrs” and Hubex. In the first race, the “Bogatyrs” were extreme at the pin, we were second, and a boat tried to attack us from behind. We defended ourselves, and eventually contacted the “Heroes” from the lee. They were standing on the line too early and eventually got out on a false start. And in the next race, a similar situation happened with the Hubex crew, and they also got out on a false start. It’s a bit insulting, because the teams are friendly, but this happens – everyone is fighting, it’s sailing.”
The second race day heated up the sports intrigue. The teams competed in strong wind conditions with gusts up to 20 knots. At the end of the day, the “Russian Bogatyrs” and the Tenzor Team shared the first and second positions with an equal number of points, respectively, the crews of the Turkish teams EKER and Ameera Jet were in third and fourth places with a minimum gap of one point.
According to Daniil Odintsov: “We were racing in a small and rather narrow bay, not far from the yacht club. The wind was blowing along the bay, we had to make a lot of turns, since there was not much space. The wind was unstable with large approaches, so the fight turned out to be interesting. It was possible to lose a lot, and also to win back a lot in these races. Our team’s parishes turned out to be quite stable (4-3-3), there were problems with starts, otherwise the team worked well – they got out of difficult situations and difficult positions”.
The lack of wind on the final race day did not allow the teams to continue fighting on the water, so the final results of the regatta were summed up based on the results of 6 races held over the previous two days.
The Tenzor Team crew of Andrey Pushkin, Daniil Odintsov, Alexander Andrianov and Nikita Ushkov scored 12 points and took the honorable second place. The winners «Russian Bogatyrs» team have the same number of points, which were ahead of the Tenzor Team by an additional indicator, the number of first arrivals – 2:1. The Turkish team EKER KAYMAK closed the top three winners.
Daniil Odintsov: “We took second place in the equality of points with the winners of the regatta. In general, we are satisfied with the result, good quality races turned out. We fell a little short of the first place, as there were several tactical mistakes during the regatta, but, nevertheless, as our shkot Alexander Andrianov said: “All in good time!”. Congratulations to the “Russian Bogatyrs” with the victory, they were sailing very worthily. The level of participants at this regatta is different, but in general it is very interesting to race, because the fleet is large. There are strong Turkish teams, such as EKER and others, so the competition is good. I also want to note the very friendly relations among the participants of the regatta: it’s nice to be here and race. Naturally, our goal is the highest – to win the series and take the highest places, so we are seriously preparing, continuing training and working out all the important points within the team. We are waiting for the next stage, which will take place in early April.”
photos: @vladimir.vishnevski / @seayou.agency /@sarma.photo