Aquece Rio – International Sailing Regatta - Fleets ready for lift off

by Daniel Smith on 5 Aug 2014 After the Finn and RS:X fleets kicked off racing at the Aquece Rio – International Sailing Regatta 2014 on Sunday, the remaining seven will start on Monday 4 August.

All five race courses will be used on Monday with three areas - Ponte, Escola Naval and Pão de Açucar -situated inside Guanabara Bay and the other two - Copacabana and Niterói - located outside the bay in open water.

The Men’s and Women’s 470 will race on Copacabana from 13:00 whilst the Laser and Laser Radial will compete on the other outside course, Niterói, from 13:00.

Inside Guanabara Bay, the RS:X fleets switch to Escola Naval. Racing for both fleets is scheduled to commence at 13:00. The Finn will continue racing on Ponte and will be joined by the Nacra 17 with start times scheduled for 13:00 and 13:10. The 49er and 49erFX will sail on Pão de Açúcar. The 49er will sail two races from 13:00 and the 49erFX will follow at 14:30. The 49erFX fleet will sail three races.

Light winds are predicted on the second day of competition with a morning north westerly breeze switching to the south west. The breeze will vary between 5-10 knots but as the day goes on it will decrease to 2-4 knots which could challenge the Race Committees. The day is expected to be hot with a maximum temperature of 31 degrees predicted.

A cold front will move through Rio on 5 August which will change the conditions for the third day of racing.

As per the previous day the fleet numbers strongly resemble what will be on offer at Rio 2016. Aquece Rio 2014 Test Event fleet sizes and Rio 2016 fleet sizes below:

Class	Aquece Rio 2014	Rio 2016
Men’s 470	23	26
Women’s 470	17	20
49er	19	20
49erFX	15	20
Laser	33	46
Laser Radial	25	37
Nacra 17	18	20

Across the 320 sailors from 34 nations who are competing in the ten events there are multiple world champions and 23 Olympic medallists. All of the fleets are strong with the world’s best among the Event ISAF Test Event website