Sailing Olympics - Day 5 Preview

WEATHER
Now you see it, now you don't. Talk of the town today is the weather and the fog/mist that rolled in during the early hours shrouding the impressive city skyline this morning. The humidity has also taken a big hike making the conditions feel more oppressive.
But despite the apparent change in gear for the weather, forecasters remain confident that racing will happen.

The tide is also starting to become more of an issue. In a south easterly breeze there will be more tide on the nose for the beats, reducing the apparent wind and making life more tricky on the upwind legs. By the top mark the tide will tend to open up the field, rewarding the early rounders, but at the bottom gate the fleet will be swept into the marks and become compressed as they round the marks.

Generally this will help the front runners to extend their lead over the fleet which in turn makes the start even more crucial.

Here's this morning's weather forecast from GBR meteorologist Libby Greenhalgh:

Tricky conditions today with a low pressure to the east of the area initially maintaining a moderate N airflow that will quickly decrease this morning to become variable.

With visibility less than 3km but slowly lifting, late morning conditions will be dominated by thermally influenced wind as the haze gradually thins.

Northerly gradient will initially provide assistance for the development of a reasonable S sea breeze but as this decrease through the morning we can expect decreasing surface wind conditions and most likely a postponement.

Overall expecting S 05 decreasing to E-S <03 eventually stabilising in the SE at 03-05 KT

HW 0304
LW 0857
HW 1418
LW 2118

The tide is expected to be flooding still at the 1300 start time.


RACING
As the medal races start to come into view, creating a buffer of points becomes all the more important. For those with a single point lead over their opponents, double points in the medal races means that at present they only share their position with the next place down. For the Finns and the Yngling's this will be particularly important.

Lasers and Laser Radials have their second day on the race course, this time further out to sea, where we are told there is a risk of an oil slick. (Could this be associated with the lumps of tar that Morrison and Rhodes discovered on their daggerboard two days ago?

The 49ers are back out on the race course for day three.

The 470's also have their third day, this time close to the shore on curse A.


PODCASTS

UK Laser sailor Paul Goodison talks to Matthew Sheahan after his opening day at the 2008 Olympics

British 470 sailors Nic Rogers and Joe Glanfield describe their first day on the race track 11-8-08

Ben Ainslie after the second day of racing plus comments on penalties - 10 Aug



** USEFUL LINKS **

Qingdao Weather

British Olympic Organisation website

British Olympic Team website



Yachting World - Matthew Sheahan, 13 August 2008