Last Saturday a special sailing competition took place: the JV24 Sopot Speed Race. The main prize was a Renault Captur worth 64 thousand PLN!
The race's distance was 1 km with a turn around buoy. Each team had to go through that distance twice. The race was commented live by Kuba Strzyczkowski from Polish Radio Three and captain Roman Paszke.
After a very fierce competition, the win was certain after the last race. The winning team was lead by Piotr Przybylski with Katarzyna Tylińska, Michał Przybylski, Witold Barabasz as teammates. Not only did they win the race with the time of 5:56,60, but were also the only ones to make it under six minutes.
The second place was taken by Piotr Cichocki's team, which lost only 6 seconds to the winners. This team was leading after the first series and in the second one, right until the last race.
Andrzej Wyszyński's team, joined by one of the most decorated Polish trainers and ex-Olympian – Andy Zawieja, took the third place. That team declared that, if they win, they'd donate their prize to the newly created "Foundation for sailors – competitors in need" – this initiative calls for applause. The competition was on a very high level, the third team lost only 32 seconds to the first one.
During the race's closing ceremony, that took place on the Sopot Molo, Jacek Karnowski, Sopot's president, awarded the winners with the keys to a brand new Renault Captur.
Here are some comments after the race:
Piotr Przybylski:
"JV24 One Design is an amazing, fast racing yacht, perfect to steer and very sensitive to each change in the wind. I'd love to have it for fleet races."
Katarzyna Tylińska:
"I loved the "clean", well planned cockpit and deck. All regulations are within reach. Working on the boat's trim during the race was completely intuitive."
Robert Janecki:
"In the projects we realize, we try to work towards the development and popularization of sailing. Organizing such different sailing race was one of such activities."