Countdown to Rio - Sailing news from the North America and beyond

by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 26 Jul 2016 As a North American sailor, I’ve grown accustomed to big things happening every four years. As a loyal American, I should likely be diverting more of my attention to this coming November’s elections than to this August’s Summer Olympics, but-given the ill winds that are swirling through both political camps at the moment-I’ll freely admit that far more of my attention is focused on the Rio Games.

After all, the XXXI Olympiad gives the U.S.-flagged team their first shot at redemption after the rough medal-ceremony shutout that the team suffered at the London 2012 Olympics.

While the Opening Ceremony does not take place until August 5, big wheels have been turning for years as athletes prepared for their moment on the international stage. The U.S. National Sailing Team will be treated to a huge send-off party on Wednesday (July 27) at the Houston Yacht Club in Houston, Texas before soon boarding planes and flying to Rio.

In addition to helping to generate great send-off energy and well-wishes, Wednesday night will also see a public screening of Uncharted Waters, the first full-length documentary about US Sailing Team Sperry.

While countless U.S. and international fans are excited to wave their flags and cheer on their favorite athletes in the weeks to come, there’s no escaping the bad news that continues to haunt Rio de Janeiro. For example, the news hit this week that the Australian Olympic Team will boycott the Rio athlete’s village, which they claim is not safe or up to international (or even reasonable) standards.

And in a tale out of a nightmare, Jason Lee, who is a New Zealand national jiu-jitsu champion, claims that he was abducted by armed police officers who demanded a cash bribe after an uncomfortable frisking session. Once the fee was paid, Lee was released.

On the bigger global political stage, word has also hit the dock that Russian sailors will be permitted to compete in Rio, following a widespread and government-sanctioned doping scandal that has seen other Russian athletes banned from the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Fortunately, these stories do not have any direct bearing on the U.S. National Sailing Team (except possibly the housing situation). Moreover, Josh Adams, the managing director of U.S. Olympic Sailing, recently wrote an open letter explaining some of the big steps that the team has taken to ensure both their safety and their Olympic competitiveness, once the starting guns begin sounding on August 8.

Stay tuned for more Olympic news, as it unfurls.

Meanwhile, in offshore sailing news, two 100-foot maxis are making headlines on decidedly different coasts. Here on the West Coast, Manouch Moshayedi and his Rio 100 teammates knocked almost two hours off of the Pacific Cup’s official elapsed time record. Rio 100 managed to sail the course in just five days, three hours, 41 minutes and 13 seconds, while the previous record holder-Robert Miller’s Mari Cha IV- sent the same miles in 2004 in five days, five hours, 38 minutes and ten seconds.

And on the East Coast, Jim and Kristy Clark's 100-foot super maxi, Comanche, is currently on pace to break another of Mari Cha IV’s records, namely the west to east transatlantic monohull record. At the time of this writing, Comanche had a considerable lead over Mari Cha IV’s relative position on the course and was sailing at 18.2 knots, with 943.6 miles to go. For comparison, Mari Cha IV was sailing at 20.8 knots, with 1,381.9 miles to go, after this same amount of elapsed time.

Impressively, Comanche is sailing without skipper Ken Read aboard, as Read was otherwise engaged as a commentator at last weekend’s America’s Cup World Series (ACWS), which took place in Portsmouth, England. After a big weekend of racing at that event, Sir Ben Ainslie and his Land Rover BAR team took top honors, followed by Oracle Team USA and SoftBank Team Japan.

Get the full ACWS reports, as well as some great image galleries, inside this issue.

Finally, for anyone who is feeling a bit shell shocked about the upcoming presidential elections, there’s great news: the next several weeks’ worth of sailing news will provide some wonderful real-world distractions from the nonstop political-news cycle, especially as we work our way towards the Rio medal ceremonies. Stay tuned!

Best of luck to all members of Team Canada and Team USA!!

May the four winds blow you safely home,