ISAF Sailing World Cup Hyères - Race day 1 ready for lift off

by Daniel Smith on 21 Apr 2014 At the ISAF Sailing World Cup Hyères, a confirmed number of 1,111 sailors racing in 765 boats from 59 nations are ready for the opening day of racing.

Racing is scheduled to commence at 11:00 local time with the race areas under the influence of two weather systems - a trough extending from central Spain to west of Corsica and a feeble ridge from north of the Adriatic sea to the Alps.

A moderate east north easterly breeze is set for the morning with 7-12 knots and breeze and as it veers to the east it’s expected to pick up to 10-15 knots.

With good conditions on the cards world number one Tonci Stipanovic (CRO) will use all of his years of hours on the water and experience on the race course, 'When I started sailing the Laser I was feeling better in the light wind but after training I started to get better in the strong conditions and I have a really good feeling on light and strong. We’re training a lot, six times per week, three hours on the water. It’s a lot of time and after many years I feel comfortable on all conditions.'

On the day’s conditions the Croatian added, 'I was checking the forecast this morning and everything is different so I don’t know what we’ll get. We are expecting the wind to stay like this until two and then changing and shifting to the right. I hope that we’ll have two nice races in this 10 knot breeze.'

Stipanovic finds himself in the Yellow Laser fleet which of the two fleets is arguably the strongest with Robert Scheidt (BRA), Pavlos Kontides (CYP), Philipp Buhl (GER), Andy Maloney (NZL), Sam Meech (NZL), Nicholas Heiner (NED), Rutger van Schaardenburg (NED) and many more amongst the racers.

Laser racing kicks off at 11:00 with the schedule for the day as follows:

Men’s RS:X – 11:00
Women’s RS:X – 11:20
Men’s 470 – 11:00
Women’s 470 – 11:20
Finn – 14:00
Laser – 11:00
Laser Radial – 14:00
49er – 14:00
49erFX – 11:00
Nacra 17 – 11:00
2.4mR – 14:00
Sonar – 14:10

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