The 49th Star Class South American Championship is opening tonight
by Rachele Vitello 7 Nov 2018 15:34 PST
7-11 November 2018
2018 Star Class South American Championship © Rachele Vitello
The 49th Star Class South American Championship will officially start tonight in Rio de Janeiro with the Opening Ceremony at the Iate Clube do Rio de Janeiro – ICRJ.
Racing will take place from tomorrow to Sunday November 11th with two races a day thru to Saturday and only one scheduled for the last day.
The Star Class South American Championship was first held in 1952 when the Star Class came to South America. The first event was organized by the ICRJ and was won by Roberto Bueno and his Star named "Xodo", and it will be organized once again here after 49 years and after several legendary editions, like the one in 2009, when at the South American Championship at ICRJ in Rio a record of entries of 63 Stars from 14 nations was registered. The event was won by Flavio Marazzi with Enrico de Maria (SUI).
This year the entries are a little more than 20, but the level is super high.
Five times Olympic medallist Robert Scheidt from Brazil will sail with fellow Brazilian crew Arthur Lopes, former Star class President and 2015 Star World Champions Lars Grael with Samuel Gonçalves (BRA) will also be on the start line and along with them that year runners up Marcelo Fuchs with Ronals Seifert (BRA).
One of the youngest Star World Champion ever was crowned about a month ago in Oxford, MD, Brazilian Finn sailor Jorge Zarif won his first Gold star in the USA with Guilherme de Almeida, and he will join the Silver star event too in Rio de Janeiro, With him on the boat this time Ubiratan Matos.
Another young team will be competing in Rio de Janeiro: Marcelo Belloti and Mauricio Bueno (BRA) are here to defend the title of South American Champions.
Winning the South American Championship has often been a Brazilian affair, with the super star brother Torben and Lars Grael winning the event five times each and Gastao Brun wining it three times.
The race course will be those used at Rio 2016 Olympic Games with the first start scheduled tomorrow, November 8th at 12.00 local time (GMT -2).
Notice of Race can be found here.
And the full entry list is here.