NZL Sailing Team- Maloney gets Kiwis underway in Rio

by Sail-World on 16 Aug 2015 Racing is underway at 2015 Rio Test Event, the highly anticipated Pre-Olympic dress rehearsal regatta being sailed over eight days in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

With staggered start dates for the different events spread across two days, Andy Maloney, New Zealand’s Laser representative, was the only kiwi to go racing today and he has made a solid start to the regatta.

Racing was also held in the the Mens and Womens Windsurfer event (RS:X) and the Womens Singlehander (Laser Radial) in which New Zealand has elected not to sent crews despite qualifying for the 2016 Olympics in these events, and having the place open in the Rio Pre-Olympic Regatta.

The 38 boat fleet sailed two races in light and challenging conditions on the Ponte Course and Maloney placed 11th in the opener, then sixth in the second, to lie sixth overall at the end of day one. Only two sailors returned two single-digit results today and Maloney can be pleased to come away from day one within the top six of the fleet.

Maloney says, “Our first race was pretty light breeze – 5-6 knots and very shifty, very patchy and it was pretty hard to read.”

“I had a good first beat and then the second beat there was big differences in pressure from the different sides of the course so I lost quite a few boats, but it was still an okay result.”

“The second race the breeze had filled in a bit, but again it was about playing the shifts and keeping your head out of the boat looking for the pressure and I had a decent race, so it was good.”

On day two the Laser fleet will be on the Niteroi course outside the entrance of Rio’s Guanabara Bay.

Tomorrow sees the start of racing in the Finn (Ponte course), Men’s and Women’s 470 (Pai course), 49er and 49erFX (Escola Naval course) and Nacra 17 (Copacabana course) classes, and the entire NZL Sailing Team contingent will be on water.

After their recent history Men’s 49er crew Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are the crew to beat in the skiff class. They’re the last fleet to get underway with a scheduled start time of 3:30pm on the central Guanabara Bay course known as Escola Naval and, if conditions allow, they will sail three races of around 30 minutes each.

“We’re at 3:30 in the afternoon so it’s a pretty late start given conditions in Rio, it normally gets dark around 5:30pm,” says Blair Tuke. “It’s going to be a cruisy morning for us and hopefully we get a few races away in the afternoon. We’re really looking forward to getting out there and getting stuck in.”

The forecast is for similar conditions again tomorrow and Tuke says they’re anticipating between 8 and 13 knots normal bay sea breeze on their course area.

“We just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings check the forecast in the morning and reassess again in the afternoon. It’s always different out there and we’ll just see what the day brings and do the best we can in those conditions.”

Given the late start Burling and Tuke plan to take it easy in the morning; “We’ll probably sleep in,” says Burling. “We practiced getting up late today, normally we’d be down at the venue around midday, but tomorrow we’ll come down about 2 o’clock. We’ve got a few free hours in the morning, so we’ll rest and use the time… it’s going to be a long week.”

The Olympic format means only one boat per qualifies nation and the 49er class is restricted to 20 boats.

“It changes the racing a bit, but we’ll go into racing with the same approach trying to do the little things well, get off the line and get the first shift and just all those little things that get you around the track quickly,” says Burling.

In the three classes in which New Zealand has qualified for 2016 Olympics, but are not represented in the 2015 Pre-Olympics, New Zealand's JP Tobin finished 10th Qualifier out of 18 from the 2014 World Championships in Santander, Spain. The 11th Qualifier, Aichen Wang (CHN) leads the Mens RS:X Windsurfer fleet after the first day of racing in the Pre-Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

In the Womens RS:X Natalia Kosinska qualified New Zealand in 12th place with 13 to Qualify from Santander. Hei Chan (HKG) who did not compete in Santander leads the Pre-Olympics and will have to qualify in a regional or 2015 World Championship event if she (and Hong Kong) is to compete in the 2016 Olympic Regatta. The Russian competitor who finished one place ahead of Kosinska in Santander, is lying seventh overall after Day 1, and the 13th competitor is 11th overall after Day 1.

There were upsets too in the Womens Singlehander, with two of the top three qualifiers from Santander finishing in double figures on the leader-board after Day 1 in the Pre-Olympics. The Italian competitor who finished two places behind New Zealand's Sara Winther in the Qualifier at Santander is 5th overall after Day 1 in Rio. USA who finished 11th Qualifier in Santander, lies in 4th place overall - however 2005 World Champion Paige Railey who did not compete in Santander, lies in 4th place after Day 1 in Rio.

The remainder of the NZL Sailing Team, including reigning Olympic champions in the Women’s 470 crew Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie, will starts racing at around 1 o’clock tomorrow.

2015 Rio Test Event, Rio de Janeiro - NZL Sailing Team current standings

6th Andy Maloney – Laser (11, 6)

Starting tomorrow…

Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie - Women’s 470 (Women’s double-handed dinghy)
Peter Burling and Blair Tuke - 49er (Men’s skiff)
Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech - 49erFX (Women’s skiff)
Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox - Men’s 470 (Men’s double-handed dinghy)
Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders - Nacra 17 (Mixed multihull)
Josh Junior - Finn (Men’s heavy-weight dinghy)