2020 ILCA Nationals round up
by Guy Noble
2020 will go down as one of the most frustrating seasons in living memory. March would normally see a cluster of qualifiers start things off and we had a terrific season lined up: the Masters worlds in Australia, Europa Cup racing, dozens of regional open meetings, not to mention the Olympics and countless other major events all lost to us. Of course not having a full sailing calendar has made us all appreciate what is normally on offer and I for one will be even more enthusiastic to race next season. Having said all that it's not quite over, we have a handful of events to look forward to: Pevensey Bay Sailing club host the Masters Nationals, Grafham Water Saying club the Open Inlands and the open qualifiers at WPNSA in October.
There are signs that we are finding effective ways to put on events while minimising the risks. The ILCA4’s had a very successful European Youth Championships in Vilamoura Portugal and WPNSA and UKLA put on an incredibly well organised Nationals for 200 boats in August.
We all need to hold our nerve and have confidence in our sports organising abilities. While there will be irresponsible people who are prepared to jeopardise the enjoyment of the many they shouldn’t be allowed to screw things up for the rest of us. We get better because we all push each other on.
2020 UKLA ILCA (Laser) Nationals
Photo credit Georgie Altham
Fresh in our memories is of course the ILCA 2020 UKLA Nationals held in Weymouth from 23rd of August to the 29th. There were many doom mongers who thought the event would not go ahead and should not go ahead but an amazing collective effort by UKLA, WPNSA and the RYA resulted in a really wonderful event not-with-standing the COVID-19 restrictions.
We have three new champions:
Elliot Hanson ILCA7,
Ali Young ILCA6
Oliver Allen-Wilcox ILCA4.
Hats off to the new top dogs. Ali and Elliot will be off to Tokyo in 2021 for the Olympics and we wish them all the best success. (a full list of winners below)
There are some interesting stats around the National is this year but I'm not going to bore you with the details suffice to say lots of women/girls - 40% in the ILCA4 30% in the ILCA6, 30% were Masters in the ILCA7 fleet, an amazing group of volunteers, incredible photographs and videos, very few on the water incidents. And extraordinary support from our sponsors:
providing dozens of great prizes and superb support throughout the week.
In my new roll as Mr Media I got to see the 3 fleets from a different perspective. It’s been said many times before but this class is run by volunteers. Over one hundred volunteers were involved in organising Weymouth! They were either participance or just like being involved in the sport but together they all make the wheels go round and without them nothing would work. The Weymouth Nationals were a perfect example of the collective ‘can do-ness’ that we should all be dead proud of. The Covid restrictions meant all the social events were off so in the very capable hands of Tony Woods and Sam Whaley a series of talks were relayed via Zoom in the evenings. These were a great success being highly informative and a perfect way to end the days racing.
But we can always do better and we should constantly strive to get more people racing ILCAs. YachtsandYachting online provided a perfect platform to publish day to day write ups of the racing and the team who worked on these literary masterpieces should be thanked. With winds of between 12 and 25kts and 3 races a day it’s quite challenging to sit down and recount the on the water duels. 17 people contributed to the published material which was seen or read by thousands of people. Why is this important? Because we want our class to thrive, which means keeping existing participants and attracting new ones. There aren’t many sailing clubs in the country that don’t have at least half a dozen Lasers. Many are still being used - these boats are your starting point. You won’t win the Nationals with one but you can learn a hell of a lot in it and with practice and upgrading you could be fighting it out on the startling with Elliot, Ali or Oliver.
Seeing the ILCA4 (Laser 4.7’s) getting ready to race was a real treat for me. Being a Master we don’t often see the other end of the spectrum. I met Mary-Anne Beacock, an ILCA4 sailor and her Dad who were staying at the same Hotel. Her enthusiasm and energy were great to see and to her credit she was starting out with exactly the right attitude - acknowledging that she has a lot to learn but determined to take away the lessons and come back stronger next year. Or Barney Procter’s daughter Honor, who was having an on the water ding-dong with her boyfriend - I think Henry just got the better of that one but there was only 3 places separating them!
With the Radials (ILCA6) things are a little bit more tense. The hundred boat fleet was divided into two with the top 25 from each fleet going into the last day as a gold fleet and the remaining 50 forming the silver fleet. As with the ILCA4’s, the 6’s have a high percentage of girls racing who hold their own perfectly well against the boys. On a fitness note, it seems to me that the general level of fitness throughout all of the fleets is phenomenally high.
The ILCA7 fleet was made up of full-time professionals, students with way too much time on their hands, uber fit young men, even fitter silver foxes and some extremely talented and determined club sailors. Maybe it is because I am now more familiar with my fellow competitors, but I detect a bit of a change. Paradoxically, there seems to be a growing sense of camaraderie throughout the fleet - perhaps this is one of the few positive effects of the COVID-19 restrictions affecting our sport.
In any normal year a Nationals of this quality would be considered a success but in 2020, in the year of the Covid, it must be seen as a triumph.
