Sailing siblings Jesse and Zander Kirkland have pinned their final hopes of Olympic qualification on fresh new sails and minor tweaks to their 49er Skiff.The local sailors will be among the 79-boat fleet at the Seiko 49er World Championships which get underway in Zadar, Croatia today.In order to secure one of the remaining five Olympic slots the Kirklands must finish among the top 35 boats.But their task won’t be easy in a star-studded fleet that includes reigning 49er World Champions Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen of Australia.Like most of the teams yet to qualify for this summer’s Olympics in the UK, the Kirklands arrived early in Croatia to get a feel for the local conditions under the watchful gaze of coach Ramon Oliden.“We have been focusing on the race course and trying to suss out the features of the venue,” said crewman Zander. “The course will be pretty close to the shoreline and so has to be considered when approaching thinking about strategy.“From what we have seen so far it seems to be a light to moderate thermal breeze that blows down the channel from the North West. Surface pressure gradient can affect this and either enhance it or bring it around to the South East if there is weather coming.“It is still too early to really know what the weather will be for the regatta, and so we are just focused on getting the job done with whatever conditions we get.”Zander said the preparations for the upcoming regatta went as smoothly as planned.“The preparations went well, we sailed several days over here and are happy about where we are it,” he said. “With Ramon’s help we have made small tweaks to our boat to make sure we’re fast and competed in practice races to warm up our tactical minds.“We have been working on our vang tension in this choppy venue and believe we have the settings to keep the boat moving fast over the waves. Ramon has a great camera which shows our leech tension compared to other boats in the fleet and that has been very helpful in making the case to adjust.“At this point we will be using all new sails. We like the feel of the new mainsail and look forward to racing with it.”The Kirklands produced their best showing to date in the 49er Skiff at last month’s Trofeo SAR Princesa Sofia-MAPFRE regatta in Mallorca, Spain where they placed 13th overall and reached the Gold fleet for the first time at this level.“Knowing that we can actually win races and get top fives and tens and be just outside of the medal race at big championships certainly helps our confidence,” said skipper Jesse.The Seiko 49er World Championships, to be hosted by Sailing Club Uskok, will consist of an opening series and a medal race. The opening series will be divided into a qualifying series and a final series.The eventual top ten finishers in the opening series will advance to the medal race.