Under bright sunny skies and a gentle 12 knots of wind, many entries of the 113-boat fleet of 49ers, 49erFX, Laser Standard, Laser Radial, 470 Men and Women, RS:X Men and Women, RS Mixed Team and Laser 4.7 Open representing 21 nations made it out to the race areas today to test the waters of Jakarta Bay in preparation for tomorrow’s opening round of races in the Asian Games 2018 Sailing Competition. 

The conditions were perfect to test not only the sailors and their racing skills, but the race committee team members led by John Parrish on their skills of handling a highly-competitive fleets.

He said, “for the next 8 days will have the Laser Standard and Radial fleets on the starting lines on Course B that will see some intense competition as the best placed NOC will secure a berth for Olympic 2020 at Tokyo.

He further added, “The starts are expected to be very tight, and racing will be very close. This surely will be a very exciting week for the sailors and the committee.”

With Japan, China and Korea already having qualified for Tokyo 2020 in the Laser Standard, it remains to be seen as to which NOC grabs the opportunity to go through.

For tomorrow’s start of racing for the sailing competition of the Asian Games 2018 there will four course races like today. And with a light wind in the forecast, it is unlikely the race course will bring the heavier sailors any smiles.

This will not be exact of course, as the wind and current conditions will change throughout the racing days and may not give a sense of how well the teams are doing during the races till the last and final day races are over.

The weather will be discussed tomorrow at 11:00 AM in the Team Leaders Briefing for a start planned at 14:00 PM, where the weatherman will be present to provide an insight into the  expected conditions for the day.

We will have the results up here when the races start tomorrow.