Team Ipanema form Rio de Janeiro

Team Ipanema form Rio de Janeiro

If there is one, the rest will follow. In 2008 there was one Brazilian team joining the Frisian Solar Challenge, this year there are four teams from Brazil! One of the teams is Team Ipanema,  they are formed mostly by participants in Grêmio Nautico of UFRJ (University Rio de Janeiro) and teachers from the Naval Engeniering department of UFRJ.

‘Grêmio Nautico is a student association, closely connected to Polo Nautico, devoted to give sailing lessons to other students and competing on national sailing tournaments. Gremio Nautico is also responsible for the maintence of the federal university boats, that is how most of our team had their first experience with boat building and repairing’.

‘During the preparation for the Frisian Solar Challenge 2008 we intended to join team Copacabana, although most of key members were out of town either on vacation or on a summer internship. Not being possible to dedicate enough time to help during all the stages of the project we decided to stand back and just gave some occasional support to team Copacabana.’, tells Thiago Vasconcelos.

Thiago: ‘Our team members were the only one in Desafio Solar, a Brazilian Solar Challenge, that designed and built their own boats from the beginning to the end. I believe this team dedication to this project is its most valuable quality. During Desafio Solar Ipanema finished in 3rd place behind two identical monohull from the same team and well ahead of all other multihulls.’

‘Right now we are redesigning all of Ipanema’s propulsive system, buying it’s components and looking for new sponsors. The hull will most likely be the same we built for Desafio Solar. Our expectation is to improve the winner speed average of the 2008 edition on the A class.’