Last chance saloon: SSL Gold Cup Pan-American Qualifiers get underway

Eight nations, four days of racing on Guanabara Bay, and just three qualifying spots. The SSL Gold Cup Pan-American Qualifiers get underway in Rio today. They're the last route into the Finals, where 40 nations will chase sailing's answer to the football World Cup from 19 November.

The teams are split into two groups of four, all racing identical SSL 47s. Bermuda, Mexico, Cuba and El Salvador make up one group, with Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Antigua & Barbuda in the other. Only the two group winners go straight through. The second- and third-placed teams from both groups then meet in a single repechage race – and only the winner of that grabs the final spot.

That leaves little margin for error, and Rio isn't making life easy. Bermuda vice captain Emily Taylor-Nagel says practice threw up one day with “anywhere between 5 and 25 knots”, followed by another where “the wind would just disappear”. Then there's the current.

Uruguay have 49er star Hernán Umpierre on the helm, adjusting to life with a crew of ten rather than two. “For me the biggest challenge is to ‘live’ a ten person campaign,” he says.

Shannon Falcone leads a young Antigua & Barbuda crew. The newcomers, El Salvador – the 66th nation to join the SSL – are led by three-time Olympian Enrique Arathoon, who knows these waters well from Rio 2016. “If we stay in sync with the wind then we'll be able to challenge,” he says.

Racing runs from today until Sunday 15 November. Watch the racing live below.

Full results and standings.