News
Spring Qualifiers update
by Sailing Secretary Keith Videlo
Following the government’s roadmap on Monday (22nd February) regarding lifting of the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions for England, we are pleased to outline our plan of how and when we will all be back sailing. As ever, this will be subject to the prevailing government restrictions.
Unfortunately, the two spring qualifiers in March at WPNSA are too early in the roadmap and we have been forced to cancel them. We will not be trying to re-schedule them. For those wanting to enter Worlds or European events and have not yet qualified, the UKLA is prepared to give some discretion on places this year.
New events for 2021
Looking ahead, there are some new events in the UKLA diary.
1. We plan to run a U21 Open at WPNSA just after Easter for all three rigs. Date to be confirmed shortly.
2. On 8/9 May we plan to run an Open event at WPNSA with ILCA 4 & 7s on Saturday and ILCA 6 on Sunday.
We will be looking for volunteers to run both above events, if you can help then please sign up here.
Fifty years of the Class
This year is our 50th anniversary and we plan to celebrate the success of our class with a few special events.
Stokes Bay SC, in conjunction with UKLA, are planning to hold a 50-year anniversary celebration event on 19/20 June. The event will be open to ILCA 6 / 7 rigs over 2 days, with a meal on the Saturday night. With Stokes Bay giving their normal warm friendly welcome, this promises to be a fantastic event, make sure you get your entry in early to avoid disappointment. Watch the website for further details.
13-18 August sees the annual National Championships at WPNSA where we plan to continue our 50th anniversary celebrations.
All 3 events will be added to the UKLA Sailingfast Youth Series and can therefore count towards qualification towards ILCA and EurILCA Championships where the individual events allow.
Don’t forget our Super Grand Prix events which will also be part of this year’s celebration.
Hopefully after a difficult start to the year, by the time we get to summer we will back to a busy sailing program.
Official Charity 2021
Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson was a successful young Laser sailor in the RYA Youth Squad and in 1999 he finished 5th in the Laser Standard World Championships in Melbourne.
He went on to compete at the highest level in the Finn, narrowly missing out on Olympic selection, before joining Iain Percy to campaign the Star, where they won Olympic medals Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
Tragically Bart lost his life in an America’s Cup training accident in 2013. His close friends set up the Andrew Simpson Foundation : The Sailing Charity in his memory.
In the 50th Anniversary, the UKLA is thrilled to advise our Official Charity for 2021 is the Andrew Simpson Foundation.
We plan to promote the valuable work the Foundation does to transform the lives of young people through sailing, in Bart’s name.
4.7 NEWS
2020 UKLA ILCA4 ROUND-UP
With the end of lockdown becoming a real possibility, we take a look back on the year that was 2020, while we get ready to restart sailing in 2021.
2020 has been a uniquely challenging year for all sailors, and especially so for the ILCA-4 (formerly Laser 4.7) fleet.
Carys Attwell -Photo Giles Smith
Training was interrupted due to the pandemic as were a number of major events, including the ILCA World Championships and our own Inland National Championships.
However, we did manage to run a number of our main events, and Oliver Allen Wilcox ended the year as the ILCA-4 national champion, with Carys Attwell the girls champion, and Jack Graham – Troll being the U16 champion. Jack ended the year as the UKLA Sailingfast ILCA-4 Ladder Series Champion.
Winter and Spring Qualifiers
A competitive winter and spring series which were key for squad selection. The highlights were arguably the events at Rutland, which included very strong winds spiced up with some Radial returnees keen to compete at these ILCA-4 international qualifier events, and Grafham, which hosted the Inland nationals. This last event was held in light winds, which lead to strong competition from the younger and lighter sailors, and which was won by Oliver Woodley, with Issy Leetch in second, and Tim Evans in third.
Pandemic Lockdown & e-Sailing
Then the Coronavirus Pandemic struck.
Our young fleet sailors made the most of it through permitted physical exercises.
Nationwide stocks of hiking benches sold out. Additionally, the UKLA held a separate Lockdown Ladder virtual e-Sailing series, sponsored by v-rigger.com and vr-sport.tv, to help hone in on tactical skills as much as possible.
The ILCA-4 Virtual-Rigger.com e-sailing prize went to Max Steele, who also went on to win the RYA’s & Eric Twiname National Junior and Battle of the Classes Championships.
Keijiro Kikkawa ended the season second placed ILCA-4 with Tom Williamson in third.
The Eurilicas
While the ILCA-worlds in Lake Garda were cancelled, the week of 15th – 22nd August saw the 2020 Eurilica ILCA4/Laser 4.7 Championships in Vilamoura, Portugal. The championships were originally scheduled to be held in Vilamoura in April 2020, but were postponed to August due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Being one of the only major international regattas taking place this year, the Laser 4.7 Eurilca’s 2020 saw a number of top Radial fleet sailors from other countries participate against the 4.7’s. Our squad demonstrated considerable determination and tenacity, navigating very complicated pandemic travel restrictions just to compete.
The week was consistently hot and sunny, with generally light winds in the morning, but building up through the afternoon so that either or both races of the day being in the region of 20 knots on almost all days. Our younger sailors faired extremely well in the first two days, especially Max Steele and Carys Attwell (day 1) and Jack Graham-Troll (day 2). But in the end, the weight, strength and experience of the older international (especially radial sailors) prevailed.
In the girls fleet, it was Coco Barrett who came out top GBR girl and 32nd overall in the gold fleet.
Amongst the U16’s:
Carys Attwell finished 19th
Dru Townsend 23 rd
Anya Morris 28 th
In the boys fleet, Javier Segui and Oliver Allen-Wilcox represented the UKLA in the boys U18 gold fleet. Javier ended the regatta in 34 th place, with Oliver in 40th.
It was a similar performance for the U16 boys, who were all very closely matched and almost had a regatta within a regatta between themselves. The placings in the end were:
Jack Graham-Troll 26th
Freddie Howarth 30th, and
Max Steele 32nd
The UK Nationals
A last minute change in the UK quarantine rules for travellers from Portugal lead to hurried changes in travel plans for our Eurilca squad so that they could compete in our own national championships in Weymouth.
The breezy and gusty conditions were met, in true Laser style with enthusiasm. It was very tight racing on the first and third days, with podium places being exchanged between the four top boys.
Sailing was aborted on the second day due to excessive wind, but this was a very welcome rest day especially for the Eurilca squad who had just returned from Portugal.
In the end, the boys fleet was won by Oliver Allen – Wilcox, ahead of Jack Graham Troll and Freddie Howarth in third. However, Jack retained his national champion title in the U16 league, with Freddie in Silver and Max Steele in Bronze.
The girls fleet was won by Carys Attwell, ahead of Honor Procter in second (first Welsh sailor), and Harriet Sacker claiming bronze. The same three podium girls won the Under-16 league as well, which bodes well for the future of GBR sailing, considering the strong wind conditions.
Jack Graham-Troll
The RYA ILCA-4 Championships
Approximately six weeks later, the fleet returned to Weymouth for the RYA ILCA-4 Junior Championships. The conditions were varied, including strong, medium and light winds, which was very testing. In the boys fleet, Jack Graham-Troll again took gold, this time just one point ahead of a challenge from Keijirro Kikkawa in silver, and Max Steele again in Bronze.
In the girls fleet, gold went to Arwyn Flur, followed by Carys Attwell and Dru Townsend.
Ladder Rankings
The overall 2020 ILCA ladder rankings ended with Jack Graham Troll highest ranked, followed by Freddie Howarth in second and Tim Evans in third. The girls fleet was topped by Carys Attwell, followed closely by Dru Townsend and Sam Edwards just half a point behind in third.
The ranking for the top-30 sailors for the year is shown below, including age groupings, with the full results available here
Training
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the RYA cancelled squad training events after March 2020.
However, thanks to our training officer, Tim Hulse, in co-operation with the Andrew Simpson sailing center, the UKLA put on aggressive training schedule as extensively as possible, and in regions across the country until the country was returned to lockdown at the end of the year.
We are monitoring the government’s and RYA’s guidance as they develop and we intend to resume training activities as well as events as soon as possible.
Training Update
We hope to be able to run an Open Training event on 10/11 April at Queen Mary SC, Covid permitting. If necessary it will become a club only event but at this stage it is hoped that it will be open to all.
REMOTE COACHING with Sam Whaley
Sam Whaley from British Sailing Team is offering Remote Coaching to individuals or clubs.
Details here: https://samwhaley.com/news/remote
QMSC has already booked him up!
Masters News February
© Sam Pearce
QMSC 10/11 April 2021 - Masters Event postponed, turned into a training weekend.
After careful consideration and discussion with QMSC, we have made the decision to postpone this event until 04/05 September 2021. We are hoping to run a training event at QMSC on 10/11 April, with the aspiration that, COVID permitting, it will be an open training event. It will give us all a chance to shake off the cobwebs after a prolonged rest from sailing.
12/13 June 2021 - Parkstone Yacht Club
We are hopeful that this event will take place. Watch this space.
9/11 July 2021 - Masters Nationals and Euromaster
Planning is well underway for this event with the NoR due to be published shortly!
4/5 September - rescheduled Masters qualifier at QMSC
2/3 October 2021 - Masters qualifier - WPNSA
16/17 October 2021 - Masters Inlands and Qualifier - GWSC
UKLA Open & National Championships 2021 - WPNSA
The UKLA Open & National Championship will be held at WPNSA (Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy) from Friday 13th to Wednesday 18th August 2021. Come along and join the fun.
The Nationals Pages are now enabled on the website. Click here - Nationals - to find out more about Off - Water Activities, Learning and of course Racing!
We will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our amazing boat all this year and are planning a special Golden National Championships, followed by the Under 21 Worlds, at the Weymouth Olympic venue - Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy.
Plan is to have a Welcome Evening on the 13th and race Saturday - Wednesday.
Gala Dinner is planned for Tuesday 17th, Covid permitting of course!
We are hoping to bring back all the learning opportunities that we had in 2018/19 - so expect Race Clinics in the mornings, Question and Answer Sessions in the evenings and Mentor/Mentee pairings throughout the event.
We’ve also managed to negotiate a 10% Discount on all Courses/Water Activities with both the Andrew Simpson Foundation and OTC for family members connected to the competitors. This includes scheduled courses in windsurfing, wind-foiling, kitesurfing, SUPing and e-foiling. Passing trade during the event will not receive any discount - it has to be pre-booked at least a month prior to the event.
We will let you know when we get the special discount booking codes.
UKLA Team
SUPER GRAND PRIX 2021 - Celebrating the Golden Anniversary!
Following the success of our Super Grand Prix events in 2019 we are hoping to continue the experience in 2021 (Covid permitting!) For this special Golden Anniversary year the UKLA is planning to fund some of the coaching costs, including paying for a coach on the Sunday. The Sunday coaching would be for all racers- briefings/de briefings and on the water support. We want to give something back to our valued members, and it therefore goes without saying that to take part in a SGP you must be a UKLA member!
Photo credit Georgie Altham
The Super Grand Prix (SGP) is a fun weekend event consisting of top quality coaching, evening social and competitive racing. Developed to encourage club sailors to take the first steps to an open meeting, and provide a bigger, more sociable event for everyone.
Primarily aimed at club sailors, but not exclusively so, valuing diversity in the fleet, encouraging all ages, gender and rigs to come together to celebrate everything that is the ILCA, with the emphasis on fun. Helping to grow and sustain a healthy club base across the regions, building confidence to take an active part, create ambassadors, whilst helping sailors develop skills and ability to get the most out of ILCA sailing.
There are currently three broad regions - South, Midlands and North.
SUPER GRAND PRIX 2021
SOUTH:
22/23 May - Queen Mary SC
17/18 July - Pagham YC
7/8 August Castle Cove SC
MIDLANDS
TBC
16/17 October - Staunton Harold SC
North
29/30 May - St Mary’s Loch
3/4 July - Pennine SC
UKLA is rebranding!
You may have have noticed that the we slightly tweaked our logo last year. Things moved on since… We now had more time to review what we have and thanks to our designer James, we have a brand new shiny logo to be proud of!
The letter A has a sail traced in and the bottom line represents the hull. Pretty clever I think… and it looks great too! go UKLA!
Extract from COACH YOURSELF TO WIN by Jon Emmett
TARGET & GOAL SETTING (pages 10-13)
This book is for all those busy people who still want to be successful and need to optimise every hour of every training session without a coach!
Not many people complain about having too much time on their hands. Sailing, like any sport, rewards hours of quality training. We want to make sure that any time we invest in our sailing is used as effectively as possible. One of the reasons why it is so hard to improve your racing is that sailing is such a time-intensive sport. It could take you many hours to arrive at the sailing venue, rig up the boat and get out on the water, whilst a runner or cyclist may be able to commence a great training session the moment they close their front door.
The aim of this book is to help everyone improve their skills in the shortest possible time, and this requires focus. When you go on a journey, to reach your destination you need to look at the map and plan the best route, not blindly head off in any direction. This means that you need to (assess yourself to) know where you are, and also know where you need to get to (your goals).
Coaching is a huge part of professional training – having someone to help with the analysis and give a second opinion – but for many sailors access to a professional coach is something that happens rarely or not at all and this is where this book can help.
After more than twenty years of coaching it made sense to put all of the most effective training exercises and key ideas into a book which will undoubtedly help you get towards the front of the fleet whether your goal is Club, National, International or even Olympic level. The same proven techniques will help you wherever you are in your sailing career.
Why are Goals so Important?
Well firstly, if you don’t have a clear target, how do you know when you have achieved something? Humans by nature like a sense of achievement: think of all the opportunities to win badges, certificates and awards when we are young (or indeed as we get older the targets, such as getting a degree, become bigger and better).
They provide motivation: if something is too easy (‘my aim for today is to clean my teeth’) then there is very little feeling of accomplishment, or if something is too hard (or perhaps impossible, like running your first marathon in under two hours) it will lead to disappointment, and repeated failure can be hard to bear. The idea is to set yourself a rewarding challenge, something you can achieve if you really put your mind to it.
The purpose of this book is to break your overall sailing goal down into small and manageable mini-goals. After all it is impossible for a human to eat an elephant in one go but if divided into small enough pieces and given enough time, then, anything is possible.
Things which are measured are more likely to be achieved, as at the end you have proof that you achieved them (or not). This is why taking detailed records of the weights you lift is so important – so you can see where you came from, what you have achieved and what you need to do next. Try to learn skills in the easiest possible way, using a method than helps you remember what you learnt. For example, in my book Tactics Made Simple I use character names (like Terry Tacker who tacks on every shift) as lots of research has shown that this is a very good way of remembering things.
Visual aids are also an excellent way of seeing information at a glance: not only is it much clearer than just rows and columns of numbers, but it is more rewarding to look at!
The key to improving your overall sailing ability is to work on your weaknesses. A good way to understand where your weaknesses lie is to compare your abilities in a number of areas in a single visual form.
The issue is: we tend to enjoy what we are good at and are therefore more inclined to practise it (and get even better at it) and dislike what we are not good at (and therefore not practise it and not improve at it). To improve our overall ability effectively, our training routines should be the other way round – focusing on our weaker areas. However, there may be some events where you would choose to specialise, for example preparing for a championship which will be held only in strong winds due to the expected sailing conditions. This may mean that you could, for that season, neglect your light wind training, if only the result in this one regatta was important to you.
Dartboards
Filling out a dartboard is very simple. You start from the middle and colour one or more sections depending upon how comfortable you feel with that skill: 1 = very low skill (no colour would be no skill at all!) and 10 would be perfect. It is not really how you choose to rate yourself (which often shows more your confidence rather than your competence) but the differences in how you rate yourself in the individual areas.
You can, of course, make as many or as few dartboards as you like, but the more specific and the more detailed they are the better. So, consider Chapter 2: Boat Handling: we could create a dartboard showing six key areas for all the boats we are racing. Perhaps having recently changed to a trapeze boat we are struggling to tack, gybe and bear away, but we are already confident to hold position, accelerate and head up.
Now we have identified some of the areas we want to work on (and boat handling is often a very good example of an issue we could expect when changing to a new class) we can go into more detail. So, then we look at tacking, as it (along with bearing away), we decided, is the weakest area and therefore where we can get some rapid improvement. This dartboard clearly shows the specific areas we need to work on.
Now we can finally choose some actions to help us. This is so much more effective than just going sailing and ‘practising boat handling’. The final dartboard shows some exercises that we can do to help our steering, body movement and sheeting. Those exercises which require us to do lots of tacks, such as riverboat, can be more useful than tacking on the whistle as they require more thought, whilst tacking in a race can hide your weakness as, even in a short race, boatspeed can help compensate for your poor tacks.
Most useful is when you do very detailed exercises like tying your tiller (so that you cannot steer using the rudder), fixed sheet tacking (so that you cannot steer using the sheet) or bum in the boat (not in this dartboard, but where you cannot move your body) which soon identify where the biggest issues lie and therefore where your time should be spent. Time management is a very important skill in modern life, and you should keep careful records of your training to make sure it is paying off.
So good luck, train hard and enjoy the rest of the book.
Blank dartboards can be downloaded here (https://fernhurstbooks.com/books/permalink/6/coach_yourself_to_win/further_info)
Coach Yourself to Win is written by gold medal winning coach and 4 times world champion in his own right, Jon Emmett. It takes you through the 12 fundamental elements of successful sailing.
To get more of Jon Emmett’s top tips, Coach Yourself to Win can be bought here (https://fernhurstbooks.com/books/permalink/6/coach_yourself_to_win). People who sign up to Fernhurst Books’ newsletter can get 25% off the cost of the book.
JOIN THE TEAM
Join the Team
The UKLA is looking for enthusiastic people to join our ever growing team -
In particular at the moment we’re looking for people to help with:
The RYA Virtual Boat Show
The South west Grand Prix Circuit
The National Grand Prix Circuit
The Newsletter
Please email Ellie at the office if you can assist in any way - even one morning a month would be great!
Many thanks to Chris Ellyatt and Tim Law for taking on the task of Sponsorship and Lydia Barber on help with the Dinghy Show!
Life in Lockdown Abroad - British Sailing Team - By Sam Whaley
Sam. Photo Sam Pearce
I am sure everyone can agree that 2021 hasn’t started as well as we had hoped. I guess last year I naively believed that come this year the virus would be long gone, with life almost back to normal.
This past year has been an exceedingly difficult year to be a professional sailor. In normal times we are usually constantly outside training, as well as travelling extensively – two things which have taken a big hit over the past year. With our income, livelihoods and ultimately our survival in the sport based on these sailing events that have been cancelled or postponed, it has been a horrific year of uncertainty. Suddenly a 9-5 remote office job looks quite appealing!
Over the first lockdown in 2020 we all were stuck inside, unable to train on the water, with everyone stuck in the same boat. It was a tricky period, but one which I personally found quite invigorating as I invested myself into eSailing and saw a great sailing community pull together to keep everyone’s skills sharp over lockdown.
Unfortunately, this latest lockdown has been quite different. As a team we have been very lucky to have elite sporting exemptions, alongside all the football F1 teams. Whilst this has been great to allow us to get on the water, it honestly is not nearly as fun without being able to share our experiences and tales with all of you guys.
With tougher rules also coming into play we have also been forced to make some difficult campaign decisions. Travel has suddenly become a risky and expensive option and at the start of this year I knew I had to base myself somewhere I would be happy to stay for a few months. The UK climate is
extremely harsh in these winter times and with this in mind I packed my bags and relocated to Vilamoura, Portugal, along with BST members Ali Young, Elliot Hanson, Michael Beckett and Dan Whiteley.
I am not going to lie, life here over the past month has been brilliant. It feels very safe here in the Algarve, and the more temperate climate allows me to train, on and off the water, to much greater lengths and really push my sailing level to new levels. I feel incredibly lucky to be out here doing what I
love, although I still am reluctant to post much online about it. Just feels a bit disrespectful to me.
It now looks like we might be stuck here for the foreseeable future, as Portugal has suddenly been put on the UK red list and returning home now involves quarantining in the hotel for almost £2000.
Understandable and completely right as to why it was implemented, but it is a bit of a shame that I cannot even return home without declaring bankruptcy! Might have to start washing some cars out here to pay for the hotel quarantine costs haha.
I do miss home a lot already so fingers crossed these travel restrictions might open up as soon as safe to do so.
Keep up to date with all our latest training on my blog over at www.samwhaley.com
Cheers
Sam
Photo - Sam Pearce
New Podcasts
New Podcast Out
Check out the latest installments of ‘An Hour with Flower’, featuring Fleet Captains Nik Froud and Tony Woods, and top Master Sailor and UKLA Measurer Alan Davis,
FAQ on what is Class Legal. By UKLA Measurer Alan Davis
All you wanted to know about Class legal boats but were afraid to ask
To coin a phrase – FAKE NEWS. There has been plenty written about Class legal boats ranging from good, factual information to incorrect information and, dare we say it, some deliberate mis-information. So, from a UKLA perspective, we will try to provide some guidance so that we can all enjoy strict one-design racing in the best dinghy in the World!
BACKGROUND
The original concept of the Weekender was first launched as the TGIF in 1969. It went into production as the Laser in 1970 with ILCA being founded in 1971. 2021 marks the 50th anniversary for the Class and the transition to a new name for the boat, an ILCA.
Q. Why is Laser Performance no longer a builder of Class approved boats?
A. Laser Performance did not meet its commitments under the Class Construction Manual and lost its status as an Approved Builder as required by World Sailing and the International Laser Class Association.
Q. What is the “Fundamental Rule”?
A. Quoting from the Class Rules. “The boat shall be raced in accordance with these Rules, with only the hull, equipment, fittings, spars, sails and battens manufactured by a World Sailing and International Laser Class Association (ILCA) approved builder in strict adherence to the boat design specification (known as the Construction Manual) which is registered with World Sailing. No addition or alteration may be made to the hull form, construction, equipment, type of equipment, placing of equipment, type of fittings, spars, sails and battens as supplied by the builder except when such an alteration of change is specifically authorized by Parts 2 or 3 of these Rules.” It is designed to ensure fair racing within a strict one-design class.
Q. Why do I keep reading about ILCAs, I thought the boat was called a Laser?
A. There were 3 legacy builders; Performance Sailcraft Australia, Performance Sailcraft Japan and Laser Performance. Laser Performance was by far the largest builder with rights, through a sister company, to use the Laser and Laser starburst branding across about 80% of the world. Laser Performance has not approved the right to use the Laser and Laser starburst branding by the new Builders and so it became necessary to rename the boat – an ILCA. Laser Performance own a number of branding rights and the rig sizes Standard / ILCA 7, Radial / ILCA 6 and 4.7 / ILCA 4 are synonymous. All new Class legal boats will be branded ILCA.
Q. What is FRAND?
A. Fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory. It is a World Sailing requirement for all Olympic classes that means any boat builder can apply to become an Approved Builder under competition laws. The approval process is challenging for new builders to ensure they are able to consistently build boats strictly in line with the Class Construction Manual to ensure fair racing.
BUYING A NEW OR USED BOAT
It's important that when anyone is buying a new or used boat that they are completely aware of the implications of buying a boat that does not have a World Sailing plaque (details below)
The Fundamental Rule one-design concept relies on the strict control of the manufacturing process. World Sailing and ILCA audit the approved builders and the approved suppliers of sails, spars etc. Boat, sails, spars etc. supplied by non-approved builders may not be the same as the boats being built by the Approved builders - this undermines the universality of the one-design concept.
The Racing Rules of Sailing rule 78 requires all boats to comply with Class rules which may not be altered by the Notice of Race or Sailing Instructions. At larger events there is formal measurement but even at club events any sailor is liable to protest by another sailor or the race committee if their boat does not comply with Class rules.
The used value and marketability of a boat built by a non-approved builder is likely to be less than one built by an Approved Builder.
Q. Are there any Class Approved Builders based in the UK?
A. Yes, Ovington. www.ovingtonboats.com
Q. Can you buy other approved boats in the UK?
A. Yes, currently 3 builders sell their boats in the UK. Potentially all 9 new Approved Builders can sell their boats in the UK. The UK based dealerships are:
Ovington – Sailingfast. www.sailingfast.co.uk
Devoti – Dzero. www.dzero.co.uk
PSA – Sailboats. www.sailboats.co.uk
Q. How can you identify a Class legal hull?
A. From sail number 148200 boats have a unique World Sailing (previously ISAF) plaque permanently affixed to the rear of the cockpit. Earlier boats have the identification number moulded into the deck below the bow eye or into the transom (a sail number or unique production number). Existing Lasers and new ILCAs can both therefore be Class legal, it is the plaque which evidences this. No World Sailing plaque means it is not Class legal.
Example plaques you may see. 216242 is the current style.
UKLA Spring Qualifiers
We have our fingers and toes crossed that we will be able to run qualifying events in March at WPNSA.
Entries are not yet, but you can register to volunteer.
World Championships application entries are OPEN
Applications for entry for the following World Championships will be accepted beginning Thursday, 4 February 2021:
2021 ILCA Laser Radial Youth World Championships
2021 ILCA Laser 4.7 Youth World Championships
For both of the above events, the deadline for receiving PAID applications for initial allocation of places is 23 March 2021 at 23:59 Central US Time.
You are encouraged to complete an entry application as soon as possible after it becomes available. Please be aware that if you do not apply by the 23 March 2021 deadline, you may have little chance of receiving an entry offer.
Information about all ILCA Laser World Championships and access to applications is available through the ILCA events page
Best regards,
The ILCA Team
ILCA 4 Lead Coach opportunity
Can you develop and retain the best ILCA 4 (Laser 4.7) racing sailors in the world?
If you have significant coaching experience and believe you know what it takes to develop and retain our next group of young ILCA 4 sailors, this could be just the role for you:
ILCA 4 Lead Coach
This role will involve working with sailors in the British Youth Sailing programme to ensure they are supported to transition through the single-handed pathway. This is an exciting opportunity for the right coach to shape the way that young sailors start their ILCA Pathway journey.
In particular, the current task is to identify sailors through the UKLA open training programme and advise them on RYA Regional Training Groups which will commence in the Autumn of 2021.
The right coach will be able to evidence that they have a vision that appropriately supports both male and female sailors through the pathway, and they exhibit the Values and Behaviours of the British Youth Sailing programme, which are:
Passionately Ambitious, Curiosity, Courage and Determination, Ownership, Respect and Integrity.
These are underpinned by our critical success factors.
In addition to coaching a variety of sailors, the role also involves attending Coach Professional Development, meetings with RYA staff, planning and delivery of coaching programmes and possible support to sailors at International events when appropriate in the future.
Applications should be made to David Mellor (Coaching Development Manager) at david.mellor@rya.org.uk in the form of a CV and a covering letter detailing relevant coaching and leadership experience as well as aspirations for future coaching.
Closing date for applications: 09:00 on Monday 15 February 2021 (Interviews are planned for Wednesday 17 or Thursday 18 Feb 2021).
UKLA Qualifier Stokes Bay
The Stokes Bay Qualifier scheduled for the beginning of March has regrettably been cancelled due to the restrictions the government has placed on us by Covid-19.
The other 2 Qualifiers in March at WPNSA are currently under review and a decision on them will be made after the government’s update on the easing of lockdown in mid-February.
We are currently trying hard to organise events (not qualifiers) to replace those that have been lost. We hope to bring you news on them as soon as decisions have been made.
For those seeking to qualify for ILCA/EurILCA events, please review the Qualification Documents posted on there UKLA website. The Committee introduced more flexibility to Qualification than in the past and there are instructions on how to seek consideration for Average Points or Discretion when appropriate.
UKLA Team
UKLA Ranking Ladders
The long awaited ranking files have landed!
Thanks for being patient whilst we worked on moving to a more efficient way of presenting the data. From now on, we will be publishing ladders through Sailwave. Note how you can now sort data by rank, date, name or age category. Massive thanks go to our scorer Nik James for perseverance and patience. If you have any questions or queries with regards to these, please drop Nik a message.
Since Inland Championships were cancelled, we will award top of the Youth Ladder after Nationals 2020 at the next event.
Masters ranking are still held within Masters’ category but some details have been updated. Check it out
Photo credit Georgie Altham
We are still working to backdate some 11 years of results plus other archives so please still bear with us - it’s a very time consuming task undertaken by Sam Whaley, Milly Gray and Richard Knight. These absolute heroes worked for hours to download data from various places to then place them in an excel sheet. From there, results will be converted into Sailwave files and published. Again, this is a bit of a slow process as well, but we are working with Sailwave to see if we can employ some shortcuts!
As always, if you have had enough of your lockdown routine and looking for some variety, give us a shout and we will fill your time one way or another.
Thank you for supporting Your Association
2021 is HERE
Welcome to 2021!
As most of us could not see the end of 2020 any quicker, we prepped ourselves for 2021 with certain expectations that it could only get better!
And then…
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Yes. I was quite speechless when the new lockdown restrictions were announced and crashed my hopes….
HOWEVER, the only way out of this is to move forward, and so the entire committee yet again rolled their sleeves and continued to plan and improve so that we can make the best out of the situation we are in.
Our Sailing Secretary Keith Videlo together with our PRO Paul Jackson and other team members are working in the background preparing for the season kick off. We want to be ready for when the situation improves and government gives us a green light for normality to start resuming. We hope to run as many events listed in the calendar as possible, but safety of all comes first, so lets be patient.
Apart from the qualifiers and nationals, we are getting ready for training and Grand Prix Circuits to resume and are very much looking forward to welcoming as many of you as possible at Super Grand Prix Events. Further details from Tony can be found here.
Our head of Media and Comms - Guy Noble also has been extremely busy since his day one. Guy has come with en exciting vision to bring UKLA archives into the daylight and to continue to capture UKLA’s history in the making. You may have wondered what happened to Gybe? Gybe took a break after our lovely editor Alison moved on to another project and Guy will be bringing it back to you in a newly redesigned format as a Year Book. All singing and dancing big thanks go to Guy for devoting his time to this project which should be landing on your doorstep very soon.
I hope you are using your lockdown wisely and working on your fitness so that you can hike that extra harder when you are reunited with your boat.
Ellie