Sky Sports New Zealand will broadcast the 2016 49er & 49erFX World Championship from the sunny shores of Clearwater Beach, Florida on February 12-14, 2016. The coverage will be of both the 49er and 49erFX Gold fleet racing live from the in it’s entirety.
“We are proud to produce the 2016 49er Worlds live broadcast from Clearwater Florida. Even more so that Sky New Zealand will pick up our feed. New Zealand is to Sailboat racing what Silicon Valley is to IT. To deliver our data driven sailing broadcast to such a sailing fluent audience is a challenge that we love to take up,” said Marcus Baur of Sailtracks.
The 2016 World Championship comes early in this Olympic year and many countries will be using the event as a selection regatta to choose which teams get to represent each country for the Olympics. Specific to New Zealand, both of their Olympic teams are already selected, with Peter Burling and Blair Tuke (49er) looking to win their fourth consecutive 49er World Championship. The duo are top of the pile in global sailing right now as Team New Zealand America’s Cup racers, 49er World Champions and Moth World Champion (Burling). In the 49erFX, Alex Maloney and Molly Meech are looking to get back to the top of the table as they won the world championship in 2013 but were left off the podium in both 2014 and 2015
The daily schedule aims to have all gold fleet races broadcast one after the other for both the 49er and 49erFX, weather permitting. The schedule calls for 3 races of roughly 30 minutes per fleet per day starting at noon local time on the 12th and the 13th of February. On the final day the racing, the 14th, the schedule starts at 10 am local time, as the schedule calls for fleets to race their three gold fleet races, then return to shore for a break only to return in the afternoon for the Medal races where only the top 10 compete. The show will also carry the medal race for the Nacra 17 World Championship which is going on simultaneously.
The 2016 worlds marks the fifth year in a row 49er sailing has been broadcasting championships live and the first time it has been picked up by live TV. Global sailing fans will still be able to tune in to watch the best fleet racing the world can offer through our youtube channel and on 49er.org. Sailing fans in New Zealand will face a Geo-Block of the online coverage and will have to watch via the Sky Feed. “Sailing is a hugely popular sport in New Zealand and we are going to bring NZ sailing fans the best Olympic sailing from the 2016 49er Class World Championship,” said Marcus Spillane, Class President. “Live TV is new initiative for us and we are excited to showcase our Class to the wider sailing public and to give them further insight into what it takes to be an Olympic Champion.”
The 2015 European Championship from Porto saw Burling and Tuke storm back on the final day to win the championship. Relive all the action here
Sail-World was very complimentary of the broadcast package saying, “It would seem that the 49er class have managed to crack the vexed issue of how to cover fleet racing in Olympic classes without requiring America’s Cup budgets. ” The 49er class thanks our partners Seiko and SAP Sailing Analytics for their continued support of 49er sailing without which none of the broadcasting would be possible. With spectacular imagery, the worlds best sailors, and a tight and exciting racing format, the 49er class aims to bring the thrills of top racing to the worlds sailing fans.
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