Current measurement at Baía de Guanabara, Rio de Janeiro

The Olympic Sailing Competition 2016 will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Following the good experience during a.o. the Olympic Games 2012 in the UK, Svašek Hydraulics will again assist the Dutch sailing team during the Olympic Games 2016 by providing specific current forecasts of the sailing area.

In order to validate the by Svašek Hydraulics in-house developed numerical flow
model (FINEL2D) of the Brazilian coast, current data has been obtained by means of a current measuring campaign. Late March 2013, the Svašek team has set off to Rio de Janeiro to perform the current measurements.

The measurements have been performed with a vessel mounted AWAC. Both the
flow velocity and flow direction over the full water depth have been measured
during five 13-hour measuring campaigns. During these campaigns, the current has
been measured along four different transects for spring and neap tide.

The obtained data has proven very useful to the model validation, since the current patterns in the area are very complex. By now the FINEL flow model has been successfully validated. It is already for use at training sessions on the way to the 2016 games and during the Olympic event itself.

The forecasts assisted the Dutch team to win two gold medals by Marit Bouwmeester and Dorian van Rijsselberghe during the Olympic Games 2016.