Yachting in Russia. Where to learn

Alexander Skolkov, co-founder of the yachting training school “Force of the Wind”, told “Championship” about how you can start your training at the captains’ school.

– How and when did the Power of the Wind school come into being?
– “Force of Wind” as an organization appeared quite a long time ago, about 9 years ago. Maxim Pinigin, the creator of the “Museum of Soviet slot machines”, together with his friends started to make regattas for “their own”. They would take a large company out to the Mediterranean Sea, take boats, manage them themselves, and organize various events there. At first the events were private, but as time went on, Wind Power grew and started working with a lot more people.

– Did you start giving classes and taking exams?
– At first it wasn’t like that, the experienced guys started training their friends who also wanted to become captains and sent them to take exams at partner schools that had licenses. Then Wind Force got a license on its own. I joined the school a little later when Max and I got to know each other and realized we were doing similar things. I had my own small organization at the time, he had Wind Force. We decided to merge our assets, but we kept the name.

– Who is trained at the school? Are there any restrictions or can anyone study?
– There is a reasonable age limit, licenses are not issued to people who are too young, just like a license to drive a car. There are no other restrictions. On the contrary, we try to make it clear that yachting is available to everyone, and it is not necessary to become a captain with a parrot on your shoulder. We have a lot of female captains and we try to introduce this image into the public consciousness in order to eradicate the myth that it is not a woman’s business.

– Is it possible to go traveling on your own after training at the school?
– The training consists of a theoretical course and a practical exam. The practical is a week of training with an instructor somewhere in the Mediterranean. A small group (about 6 people) goes out and every day someone conditionally becomes a captain. We call it “toy captaining”. If you successfully pass the exam, you are given an international class captain’s license. With them you can safely go on a voyage. Of course, for the first time it is better to choose an easier region, where there are no difficult conditions or winds. But with every journey comes experience and with time you can choose regions a little more strange or dangerous.

– Are there any points that beginners should pay attention to?
– A lot of newcomers have one thing in common: they are too eager to go into battle. They think that they will quickly get their license, in five minutes they will go on a trip, and tomorrow they can go around the world. Experience is accumulated quite slowly, skills come only through numerous and constant training, it must be understood. That is why it is very good if before you come to the school you have already had experience of traveling not as a captain or a senior assistant, but as an ordinary crew member. At our school, you can sign up for any voyage and tell the captain that you would like to learn. All our captains will gladly respond to your request, they will be only too happy to delegate some of the work to someone else, while teaching the process in parallel.

– What qualities do you need to be a good captain?
– Anyone can become a captain, but a good captain is distinguished by such qualities as the ability to take responsibility for everyone, to make quick decisions and soberly assess their strength. A good captain is always able to distinguish the skills he possesses from the skills he would like to possess, but is not ready yet. Sometimes it is easier to not leave the marina in strong winds and possibly upset your crew with that decision, than to go out and get into conditions you can’t handle.

– Can a person with a small income afford yachting?
– We try to make it as affordable and democratic as possible. If you come to us for training in the Moscow region under the subscription system, it will cost about 1700 rubles for one training session. It costs about the same amount to train in the pool with a trainer. If we talk about outbound yachting, we try to keep one of the lowest prices in the market. Some of our regatta can cost 500 euros. Of course, we add airplane expenses and food, but in general, this is the amount that a person with an average income can afford.

– Is it possible to train in Russia or do I have to go abroad?
– There are two things to consider: there is sport yachting and there is cruising yachting. Sport yachting can be trained in Russia, right here, in the Moscow region. You can come to the reservoir and train all day long. We have already brought up a lot of talented young racers, who now fight each other on the distance. But that training doesn’t give you any rights. As for cruising yachting, here you are trained, then you are issued an international class license and you set off on a sailing yacht. It can also be trained in Russia. We do not conduct such practice, but there are schools that do it. You can pass the practice in Vladivostok, in the Crimea or near St. Petersburg. But such training has a disadvantage: the international class license you receive does not work in Russia. The international system, according to which all these schools are certified, is not friendly with Russia, so if you plan to take a boat somewhere abroad, it is better to take the exam somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. After all, you will better understand the conditions, traffic on the water, the structure of marinas, where you will have to moor, navigation signs and so on.

– Where in Russia can you sail?
– There are a lot of such places in Russia. You can sail in the Sea of Azov, in the White Sea, and in the Gulf of Finland. You can sail in the Black Sea in Crimea or Sochi. You can try to go from Sochi to Turkey or further. Yachting is very intense in Vladivostok, there is a huge yacht club “Seven feet”, which hosts a lot of high-class regattas. Next summer we plan to make a trip from Vladivostok to Japan and back. There is a small regatta on Baikal called “Baikal Sailing Week”, it’s pretty intense yachting there too. This list can go on for a long time, many yachtsmen travel along rivers, train on reservoirs all over Russia, someone drives boats from Finland to Sochi through our river system, someone sails on Solovki, someone in the Barents Sea. But there is practically no yacht industry in Russia: there are no convenient marinas, no places where you can rent a yacht, no systems through which this yacht can be found. And this, of course, creates great difficulties. But, despite them, yachting in Russia continues to develop gradually.

– Does yachting sport have a season?
– In Russia there is. It lasts from May to October. The rest of the time it is just cold. But in the cold season you can go yachting in many places: Turkey, Canary Islands, Caribbean, Thailand. So if you have money for air travel, yachting is not seasonal.

– Is it necessary to have your own yacht?
– It is only necessary if you want to sail around the world. Most captains and people who do yachting on a regular basis do not have their own yachts. This whole system has evolved so that you can always find a boat that you can rent. You only need your own boat if you want to tie your life to being on it all the time, because it requires a lot of maintenance and money. If you are not going to travel more than 5 times a year, there is no need for your own boat.