Rio 2016 Daylight the issue for Olympic sailing regatta

by Rob Kothe & Jedda Murphy on 17 Sep 2014 London 2012 49 Olympic Gold Medallist Nathan Outteridge signals major issue with Rio 2016 regatta

Plenty of boat park time at Santander World 2014 as the race organisers struggle to keep racing on track in light airs and in discussions this week, the Australian gave this assessment of a major issue looming for the sailing regatta in 2016

Rio Everyone had doubts going there and obviously there are plenty of challenges there. I was impressed and surprised at how the good the wind was for not just the racing but the training. The sea breeze was quite regular.

`There was quite a bit of frontal system, weather systems passing through. It was a difficult challenging race course and I think it is going to be a good event.

‘The biggest challenge they have is daylight. It’s dark at five 0`clock. The sea breeze doesn’t come until one so you have got a four hour window of racing every day and we were sharing a race course with the FXs and their intention was to do three races a day for them and us in the space of four hours.

` If you work it out, moving forward we need to have more days of racing because there are going to be days where the weather is not going to play and you are not going to get racing in.

‘They need to ‘get going on that because the last thing you want to do is have the regatta cut short.

‘I think there is talk of a four or five day event as opposed to a ten day event we had in Weymouth and then you get bad weather in that period you could be only doing six races for an Olympics and that would be a disaster.

'That’s my only concern with the Olympics at the moment is that there is a change that the regatta could get cut short because of a time frame and especially with the available hours to be sailed during the day it gets dark way early.

Asked was he expecting ISAF to carry the case Outteridge responded ‘I don’t know. I definitely made it quite clear to ISAF and our 49er class representative but I don’t know if it is an ISAF decision or an IOC decision. `’

‘I don’t get involved with all the politics but I know as sailor and speaking to all the sailors at the end of the event that is the biggest concern is not the wind strength or the pollution but the sailing window

‘The fact that it gets dark so early and that days gets cut short and therefore we may not get a full series in. The more races you do the better, it provides the best opportunity for the best sailors to win. There needs to be positive action on this and soon!’