The 2015 Mens and Womens 470 World Championships get underway next week with racing kicking off on Monday 12 October and running through until Saturday 17 October.
Both kiwi crews are among a bevy of international sailors who have arrived in the Israeli coastal city of Haifa early to compete in the 2015 Israel Open 470 National Championships as build-up.
London 2012 Olympic Champion Jo Aleh says; I have never sailed in Haifa or Israel before, but as I have family over here I have been to Israel lots of times and so I am very happy to finally be sailing. It is beautiful sailing here, so warm, 29 degree water and wind every day. Very amazing!
Both New Zealand Sailing Team's 470 crews last competed in Rio de Janeiro at the 2015 Olympic Test Event in August.
We just had the Test Event in Rio a month and a half ago, and a bit of down time after that, so it's a little bit odd to be suddenly getting ready for the World Champs. But its so lovely and warm here, and a beautiful place to sail, so its very easy to be highly motivated.
Aleh and Powrie, known as Team Jolly, will apply the same approach to this World Championship as they do going into any regatta.
We just want to go out there and have some fun on the water, smash out a few good races and see where that leaves us. Obviously our competitive instincts will kick right in, so we will be putting our all into it, and it will be nice to finish off the year with a good regatta after a tricky event for us in Rio, explains Aleh.
With less than a year to go before the Games, every event matters, but more about what we get out of it rather than the numbers we end up with at the end. So this is yet another testing and learning opportunity, and we aim to get as much as we can out of it.
While New Zealand has already secured Olympic qualification in both the mens and womens 470 classes through their performances at the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships this months regatta in Israel is a significant event for those teams still seeking to qualify their nation to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, with six places on offer for the 470 Men and three for the 470 Women.
From the current entry list, there are teams from 17 nations on the hunt for one of the six places in the 470 Men: Angola, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, and Ukraine.
In the 470 women, the maths is 13 nations gunning for three nation places. In contention are teams from: Australia, Canada, Chile, Spain, Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, and Turkey.
