ILCA UK Chair Blog #130
NO2….
Finish boat at National Open 2
Another great weekend at the second National Open at WPNSA and thankfully a bit warmer than the first one. We had three fine races in the Bay on Saturday and still managed to be ashore around 3pm and the race team wisely decided to stay in the Harbour on Sunday (who wants a 1-hour beat before 10 o’clock and any racing). Overall, there was a super feeling at the event – well done to all the sailors, volunteers and helpers.
I thought Jon Emmet’s video of National Open 1 summed up ILCA UK is all about. Here it is.
Also we also had three really good write-ups from that first weekend:
2025 ILCA UK National Open 1 at the WPNSA - ILCA 7 fleet report
2025 ILCA UK National Open 1 at the WPNSA - ILCA 4 fleet report
2025 ILCA UK National Open 1 at the WPNSA- ILCA 6 fleet report
Finally have you seen the tracking? Here are the links - ILCA UK National Open 1 ILCA UK National Open 2
On Thursday, James Foster did a nice debriefing of the racing using the tracking data, see here. ILCA7 briefing. ILCA4 briefing.
We will have race reports next week but in meantime here is a video of National Open 2.
Sometimes it is a challenge to determine what to write in these blogs on a Monday. One of the ILCA4 parents asked about that as we were packing up and the reality is that themes often emerge from conversations like that. In that case we started talking about the culture of our class. That culture started to be redefined when Rob Cage took over as class Chair and as a committee, we have worked really hard to build on that. Having the committee aligned really helps re-enforce that culture at multiple points at events like we have had over the last two weekends. It defines how sailors interact with each other and how the irregular poor behaviour is handled. It defines how parents and volunteers interact with each other and race officials and jurors communicate. We are not perfect, but a strong culture keeps us on the right track.
If you’ve been following our weekly blog over the past couple of years, you probably understand that culture. It’s about the strength of our community, our passion for ILCA sailing and the class and about working together. We’re a mix of youth sailors just starting out, seasoned masters with decades of stories, and everything in between. From British Saling Team members to club sailors. But what unites us is a shared love of ILCA sailing, top competition and great racing — and a belief that everyone should feel welcome on the start line. The culture is one of helping out, whether it’s a parent helping on the beach, experienced sailors offering tips after a race, volunteers that are the heartbeat of ILCA UK. So if you ask me what the culture of ILCA UK is, I’d say: it’s friendly, it’s open, it’s about improving and making the most of the opportunity, no matter your expectations on the race course.
Snippets
The next ILCA Women’s Coaching session, led by Ellie Cumpsty, is at King George SC on 17th May. Further dates at Parkstone YC, Stokes Bay SC and Draycote Water are being finalised. Keep an eye on the ILCA Calendar for details as these sessions sell out quickly.
Our sponsor Wildwind are hosting a Women's ILCA Clinic led by NED sailor Maartje van Dam from May 4th.
You will see our calendar starting to fill up. For Masters sailors, the 2025 SUZUKI ILCA MASTER EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS at Hayling Island in June is now open. This is a great chance for GBR sailors to sail a European Championship on home waters. If you are a competent club sailor, why not come along? Or maybe you have been out of sailing for a while, well its not too late to come to this! We have the ILCA UK Masters Nationals the weekend before and a Masters event in Parkstone in early May
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
Entries to Masters Series at Parkstone
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar - last winter training is available to book.
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
ILCA UK have two National Opens at WPNSA on 11/12 Oct and 18/19 Oct - the latter clashes with the U21s Europeans so discretionary points may apply for the qualification ladder but not for the first weekend (we moved from 25/26 Oct to 11/12 Oct to avoid a double clash). Masters Inlands date is confimred for 25/26 Oct.
Other news
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 4 fleet report
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 6 fleet report
ILCA UK Chair Blog #129
NO1 …..
Happy St Patricks Day ! Wow what a great weekend at WPNSA for the first National Open of the year ! 190 entries, so much so that we had to flight the ILCA6s and highest entry for a weekend event for many years. Full range of experience from almost a full complement of British Sailing Team members to club sailors, masters and first-timers. Yes there was a (very) cold chill but the race team got through the races efficiently. There was a good crowd for food and rugby after sailing.
The tracking is super – see here and adds a great new dimension to our events. I couldn’t quite get to grips with the strategy for the weekend and having replayed a couple of the races after the weekend, I was able to confirm where I was going wrong! I sailed two good first beats in Race 1 and 6 which was based on multiple shifts that required mostly taking the lift. For the other races, I assumed the strategy was similar, but it wasn’t. Quite a few of the races had long slow shifts – you can see this clearly in Race 5 of ILCA7s, where the lift on starboard off the line is followed by a very short-lived shift to the left before another dramatic shift to the right for the rest of the beat (basically a long, slow shift to the right). Other races had a persistent shift on the first beat. Of course, identifying all of this before rather than after the race is the difficult part. And those with better boat speed are able to hedge their bets somewhat. If you want to see how some of the best sailors in the world do it, you can follow their tracks. Next weekend trackers will be on ILCA6s – we are trialling tracking at these two events and looking for feedback as there is a cost to providing for the sailors (entrants should see a survey).
These events don’t happen without a load of work – below is a list of helpers who have made this happen. Sorry if anyone has been missed as it is fairly dynamic. Thank you.
While these volunteers are usually quite visible, there is a lot of work going on “below decks”. Roger Hakes as Chair of the Youth sub-committee has been working hard to get our RYA Class Recognition completed. Also Lorna Phipps is acting as our Treasurer and working on the Finance sub-committee with Fiona Grayton and Sarah Harding. These are the sort of activities that keep to class going. Thanks to them and everyone who works on the main committee or a sub-committee.
Entries for National Open 2 at WPNSA this weekend close of Tuesday.
Snippets
The next ILCA Women’s Coaching session, led by Ellie Cumpsty, is at King George SC on 17th May. Further dates at Parkstone YC, Stokes Bay SC and Draycote Water are being finalised. Keep an eye on the ILCA Calendar for details as these sessions sell out quickly.
Our sponsor Wildwind are hosting a Women's ILCA Clinic led by NED sailor Maartje van Dam from May 4th. You can see and buy photos from this event through Lotte Johnson’s page.
You will see our calendar starting to fill up. For Masters sailors, the 2025 SUZUKI ILCA MASTER EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS at Hayling Island in June is now open. This is a great chance for GBR sailors to sail a European Championship on home waters. If you are a competent club sailor, why not come along? Or maybe you have been out of sailing for a while, well its not too late to come to this! We have the ILCA UK Masters Nationals the weekend before and a Masters event in Parkstone in early May (Parkstone entries open TONIGHT).
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
Entries to National Open 2
Entries to Masters Series at Parkstone - open TONIGHT
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar - last winter training is available to book.
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
ILCA UK have two National Opens at WPNSA on 11/12 Oct and 18/19 Oct - the latter clashes with the U21s Europeans so discretionary points may apply for the qualification ladder but not for the first weekend (we moved from 25/26 Oct to 11/12 Oct to avoid a double clash). Masters Inlands date is confimred for 25/26 Oct.
Other news
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 4 fleet report
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 6 fleet report
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic cycle will start in Mallorca
NI Sailing Team dominate Celtic Cup with clean sweep victory
Call to action: Abandoned Boats Changing Lives for Youth Sailors in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
ILCA UK Chair Blog #128
Race Strategy……
I had a lovely two races at Queen Mary on Sunday – sun out, 16 degrees and 8 to 10 knots, attracting around 30 boats. I hope many of you also had to chance to get out. We were talking about race strategy afterwards and I don’t think I have discussed that in this blog. The great thing about our sport is the number of factors you need to address for a good performance – avoiding major mistakes, boat handling and boat speed and starting are all key, but race strategy is also critical. After all, your tactics around the racecourse are subservient to race strategy.
Components of race strategy are well-told. What geographic features affect the wind direction and strength? Is there a current or tide that is not consistent? Is the weather a factor (e.g. big clouds)? We often resort to “is the wind stronger on one side of the course than the other?” and we test for shifts by sailing upwind for a few minutes before the start.
But for many of us racing on inland venues this doesn’t really suffice as what is really needed is a clear assessment of what “type” of wind it is. The wind rarely oscillates in a classical sense (i.e. swing back and forth in a regular rhythm) but is instead a random “pattern” of shifts and gusts. This means a left shift is not necessarily followed by a right shift in a certain timescale – it could be followed by a further shift to the left or a very delayed shift to the right. But while the gust and shifts may be somewhat random, they can have patterns.
At Queen Mary on Sunday, the shifts, of usually 10 to 20 degrees, were occurring may be six times per weather leg. But sometimes they were bigger and longer and overlaying this was inconsistent pressure or gusts over racecourse. The race strategy is to stay in the pressure and take the lifts in the middle of the course. If the wind assessment is correct, this strategy works over the long run, but not every time, given the random nature of the wind.
On many other days at Queen Mary, the shifts occur much less frequently, maybe once or twice per beat and in this case, the race strategy is to stay on the lift until it shifts back (don’t take the little shifts), even if that brings you right into the corner. This is very tricky as time often runs out. It is even worse, when boats head to opposite corners on a median heading as the next shift can go either way (remember it is more random than oscillating). Of course, it is possible to hedge your bets (literally) by avoiding the corners or covering the fleet. But the first beat can be very difficult if the race starts on a median heading as it is hard to predict which way the first big shift is going to go.
Of course, sailing on the sea is often very different to this but understanding what the wind is doing remains key. I remember a masters race at Hayling a couple of years ago where the first beat in 20knots required tacking ten times on multiple shifts but the second beat required two tacks for two big shifts – sometimes the race strategy changes mid-race!
Snippets
ILCA UK celebrated International Women’s Day with the latest Women’s Coaching Programme at Queen Mary SC attended by women sailors of all ages. George Povall and Ellie Cumpsty chose to focus on speed and control in champagne sailing conditions. Inspiration and confidence are essential to all sailors: for the afternoon session the group were joined by Coté Poncell who represented Chile in the 2024 Olympics and inspired whoops and holas with her demonstrations and Q&A session. Half a dozen of the sailors joined QM Club racing on Sunday and discovered what a friendly bunch they are.
The next ILCA Women’s Coaching session, led by Ellie Cumpsty, is at King George SC on 17th May. Further dates at Parkstone YC, Stokes Bay SC and Draycote Water are being finalised. Keep an eye on the ILCA Calendar for details as these sessions sell out quickly.
Our sponsor Wildwind are hosting a Women's ILCA Clinic led by NED sailor Maartje van Dam from May 4th. You can see and buy photos from this event through Lotte Johnson’s page.
You will see our calendar starting to fill up. For Masters sailors, the 2025 SUZUKI ILCA MASTER EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS at Hayling Island in June is now open. This is a great chance for GBR sailors to sail a European Championship on home waters. If you are a competent club sailor, why not come along? Or maybe you have been out of sailing for a while, well its not too late to come to this! We have the ILCA UK Masters Nationals the weekend before and a Masters event in Parkstone in early May (Parkstone entries open TONIGHT).
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
Entries to National Open 1 (closes TONIGHT) 1 and National Open 2
Entries to Masters Series at Parkstone - open TONIGHT
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar - last winter training is available to book.
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
ILCA UK have two National Opens at WPNSA on 11/12 Oct and 18/19 Oct - the latter clashes with the U21s Europeans so discretionary points may apply for the qualification ladder but not for the first weekend (we moved from 25/26 Oct to 11/12 Oct to avoid a double clash). Please not that the Masters Inlands date remains provisional.
Other news
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 4 fleet report
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 6 fleet report
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic cycle will start in Mallorca
NI Sailing Team dominate Celtic Cup with clean sweep victory
Call to action: Abandoned Boats Changing Lives for Youth Sailors in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
ILCA UK Chair blog #127
Calling masters …..
You will see our calendar starting to fill up. For Masters sailors, the 2025 SUZUKI ILCA MASTER EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS at Hayling Island in June is now open. This is a great chance for GBR sailors to sail a European Championship on home waters. If you are a competent club sailor, why not come along? Or maybe you have been out of sailing for a while, well its not too late to come to this! We have the ILCA UK Masters Nationals the weekend before and a Masters event in Parkstone in early May (both will open soon).
Last week I mentioned Our first two National Opens (formerly Qualifiers) are at WPNSA on 15/16 March and 22/23 March and these are now open for entry. These events are open meetings, run to a high-level, with sailors from competent club sailors to British Sailing Team members. They are a great opportunity to sail against the best and to learn and improve your skills. And they are open to volunteers (15/16) too and here (22/23)
I talked about motivations and aspirations for racing in Blog 122 and this seemed to resonate with some of you. That blog was also about dreams and targets and removing obstacles to those is important to achieving those. Then I mentioned ILCA equipment in Blog #125 – ILCA UK have an excellent video to help you rig your boat to a high level.
Finally two further ILCA UK videos to get your season going :
ILCA technique for upwind/downwind in light and heavy air
Snippets
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
Entries to National Open 1 (formerly qualifier) 1 and National Open 2
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar - last winter training is available to book.
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
ILCA UK have two National Opens at WPNSA on 11/12 Oct and 18/19 Oct - the latter clashes with the U21s Europeans so discretionary points may apply for the qualification ladder but not for the first weekend (we moved from 25/26 Oct to 11/12 Oct to avoid a double clash).
Other news
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 4 fleet report
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 6 fleet report
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic cycle will start in Mallorca
NI Sailing Team dominate Celtic Cup with clean sweep victory
Call to action: Abandoned Boats Changing Lives for Youth Sailors in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
ILCA UK Chair Blog # 126
Volunteering ……
ILCA Stand at RYA Dinghy Show - hiking challange
Let me start with thanks to those that helped on the ILCA UK stand at the RYA Dinghy Show. There was a great buzz around our stand consistent with the buzz around the class! It was great to see so many visitors – new and old. Led by Ellie, helped by amongst others Leo, Brett, Andrew, Andy, Deborah, Mille, Jasmine, Toby, Fiona, Guy, Keith, Sarah, Max, Mike, Stick, Andrew, Anna, Nathan, Jonathan, Keith, Mille & Archie. Shout-out to Ellie, Andy, Max, Jonathan and Stick for setting up and Ellie, Andy, Leo, Brett, Max and Jonathan for taking down.
Posters from the show are available for download in the snippets.
Of course, volunteering is central to our class and indeed our sport. Stop to think for a second – who ran your club racing at the weekend? It is not just at club level but ILCA UK has many volunteer committee and sub-committee members as well as all the great volunteers at our events. But volunteering is also about people helping themselves! To quote Sport England there are many benefits for the individual too. Volunteering can be a hugely rewarding experience and gives back in many other ways. Volunteers are happier: People who volunteer in sport often feel a sense of pride and say that their life has a sense of purpose. They meet new people: Volunteering in sport is a great way to make new friends and connections. Volunteers at a sports club often work as part of a team of volunteers. A shared love of sport often leads to new friendships. It’s a great way to develop new skills: Volunteering can help to improve current skills or develop new ones. Different roles will offer different opportunities. Some clubs might also offer you training to develop new skills that will help the volunteer in their role.
ILCA UK want to be an inclusive class, and we welcome all volunteers – in fact we want a diverse volunteer base because the best teams comes from diverse teams. That means we have roles for you whether you are an experienced sailor or not, whether you are old or young and whatever you background. The RYA have produced some excellent videos (see link below) on the role of volunteers – they are especially great as they were filmed at our ILCA UK National Championship at Hayling Island in 2023. Enjoy!
Volunteer vacancy - Y&Y Editor. Our race reports for National events are written by sailors based with guidelines provided to support them. This role is to check those reports and edit if needed and publish on Y&Y platform. It is a couple of hours work the week after an event, around 10 times per year. It may suit a volunteer interested in “work experience” to support a career in communications but is of course open to everyone.
Our first two National Opens (formerly Qualifiers) are at WPNSA on 15/16 March and 22/23 March and these are now open for entry. These events are open meetings, run to a high-level, with sailors from competent club sailors to British Sailing Team members. They are a great opportunity to sail against the best and to learn and improve your skills. And they are open to volunteers too.
Snippets
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
Entries to National Open 1 (formerly qualifier) 1 and National Open 2
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar - last winter training is available to book.
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
ILCA UK have two National Opens at WPNSA on 11/12 Oct and 18/19 Oct - the latter clashes with the U21s Europeans so discretionary points may apply for the qualification ladder but not for the first weekend (we moved from 25/26 Oct to 11/12 Oct to avoid a double clash).
Other news
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 4 fleet report
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 6 fleet report
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic cycle will start in Mallorca
NI Sailing Team dominate Celtic Cup with clean sweep victory
Call to action: Abandoned Boats Changing Lives for Youth Sailors in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
ILCA UK Chair Blog #125
equipment
With signs of spring arriving this week, many will turn to thoughts of getting out in their ILCA again and for others think about the season ahead. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned motivations and aspirations for racing in Blog 122 and this seemed to resonate with some of you. That blog was also about dreams and targets and removing obstacles to those is important to achieving those. Your ILCA is a good place to start. I talk about this more extensively in Blog 133 but it is worth emphasizing a couple of points. Gear failure can have a devastating impact on your race result or series – broken spars are high on the list. Carbon top sections seem to be much less likely to break than an older aluminium one that often corrodes around the rivets. Worn fittings and ropes especially those with a high load should be examined – the kicker ropes for example. And watch the tiller extension join for splits.
Having reduced the chances for gear failure, the greatest performance gain may well come from your sail, so it is worth considering upgrading. There is a decent market from good second-hand sails (often from British Sailing Team (BST) members and others). It is hard to give rules of thumb around this as it depends on your experience and the quality of the fleet you are sailing in but it may be worth asking some of the experienced ILCA sailors in your club. Clearly as the standard of competition rises, the sail becomes more and more important - BST sailors will change their sails for every major regatta, but for most of us better performance gains are to be made elsewhere so long as the sail matches the standard of competition. One other piece of advice - never try new sailing gear and equipment for the first time in an important race.
Finally, ILCA UK have an excellent video to help you rig your boat to a high level.
Snippets
ILCA UK have two National Opens at WPNSA on 11/12 Oct and 18/19 Oct - the latter clashes with the U21s Europeans so discretionary points may apply for the qualification ladder but not for the first weekend (we moved from 25/26 Oct to 11/12 Oct to avoid a double clash).
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
Entries to National Open 1 (formerly qualifier) 1 and National Open 2 will open 18/02/2025 TOMORROW
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 4 fleet report
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 6 fleet report
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic cycle will start in Mallorca
NI Sailing Team dominate Celtic Cup with clean sweep victory
Call to action: Abandoned Boats Changing Lives for Youth Sailors in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
ILCA UK Chair Blog #124
Parents and ILCA sailing…..
At the end of England’s Six Nations game against France, Fin Smith, England’s young player of the match, embraced his parents. All those unsung hours on school and club touchlines, all those youthful ups and downs, distilled into a tight group hug of the purest emotional joy, according to the Guardian. It has made me realise it has come time to discuss the role of parents in our sport.
Parents or guardians provide the opportunity for children to be involved in sport. Whether it is signing them up to clubs or after school sports or bringing them to training, often waiting around to bring them home. In most sports, from rugby and football to swimming and sailing, it is a big time commitment and a financial one too. Many young sailors can’t walk to their sailing club nor access public transport and so rely on parents. And when it comes to competitions, either one day or weekends, it means a lot of travelling and hanging around. (Of course, a significant benefit is that many parents volunteer to help make these competitions work, but that’s another subject.) We have to also understand that not all children get these opportunities, and it is important (in my view anyway) than our children understand that and the sacrifices that their parents make.
But to be clear children have many different motivations for doing sport. I touched on this in Blog #122 about sailing (ILCAs) – it is about the pure enjoyment of sailing, the physical exercise, the mental stimulation, the thrill of competition, the socialising and the independence and every child is different in why they are doing it. Another factor is of course to please us parents. It is something I ask myself – are they really doing this for their own reasons or because subconsciously they know we want them to.
Parents also provide not just the opportunity but the emotional support that children need in sport. Sport invariably involves winning and losing and young people need to learn how to deal with that. Study after study has shown that positive parental involvement contributes to a positive sporting experience for their children. That involvement supports self-esteem, motivation and social skills. And again, studies have shown that these valuable skills gained in sport, transfer and help development in other areas of life like school and careers. What is less clear though is that positive parental support results in an increased likelihood of success in sport (there may be a correlation but a casual link is not proven).
One of the challenges of youth sport is that children develop at different rates, physically and mentally. A “child-wonder” may not develop into the next Tiger Woods (or they could) but in a sport like sailing, which is not “early specialisation”, the stars can also develop later, making talent identification so difficult. With all the benefits that sport can bring, it is important that we help our children develop a passion so that they can “sail for life” as well as getting all the benefits.
Studies also show that being “over-involved” in your child’s sporting development can have negative consequences - I mean beyond providing emotional and tangible support by for example over-inflating player’s ego or putting pressure on them. Stories in the press abound from other sports and most sports administrators will tell you the hardest part of their job is dealing with over-zealous parents. We are lucky in our class that parents understand this boundary and also step forward to help and volunteer.
So parents play such an important role in the sporting life of our children and it is important to celebrate those moments of bonding that it creates, even if not as player of match in the Six Nations.
Snippets
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 4 fleet report
ILCA UK Youth Winter Trophy at Datchet Water Sailing Club - ILCA 6 fleet report
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic cycle will start in Mallorca
NI Sailing Team dominate Celtic Cup with clean sweep victory
Call to action: Abandoned Boats Changing Lives for Youth Sailors in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
ILCA UK Chair blog #123
Winter trophy…..
Photo by James Harle
Some ramblings this week from across the ILCA community, starting first of all with the Harken Youth Winter Trophy 2025 at Datchet Water Sailing Club. We had 77 entries split across ILCA4s and ILCA6s with lots of sailors new to ILCA UK racing. It was a lovely weekend except for the rather light wind and there was a friendly and welcoming atmosphere at club. Sailors were supported by a class coach (thanks Will Dyson) helping less experienced sailors on and off the water.
We featured a trial of high-resolution GPS race trackers that enabled live tracking of boats during the races. All 77 sailors in the ILCA 4 and ILCA 6 fleets received race trackers at sign-up, with an additional 10 trackers used for the race course for the start, race marks, and finish lines. The trackers provided real-time data accessible via the TracTrac App and online, allowing spectators to follow the action closely. The live leaderboard displayed crucial information, including boat speed, distance to the next mark, boat heading, and total distance sailed. A highlight was the “Fastest Boat of the Day” award called a FAB, with FAB stickers and water bottles given to the top performers: Leo Yates (ILCA 6) with a speed of 8.7 knots and Finley Mason (ILCA 4) at 6.21 knots on Saturday, followed by Billy Morris (ILCA 6) at 7.99 knots and Hannah Kewely (ILCA 4) at 6.45 knots on Sunday. These top speeds were achieved amidst generally sub-5-knot conditions, indicating the impact of brief gusts. An online race playback session using the tracking data and video is planned for this week, aimed at analysing race strategies. We plan to use the trackers again at the National Open in March at WPNSA. Watch the races. Thanks to Breet for organising.
Many thanks to all the wonderful volunteers - on and off the water and of course to our hosts Datchet Water Sailing Club. I have called-out some volunteers in key roles but many more have helped to make this happen.
And of course thanks to our sponsors Harken and Rooster.
The next Youth Series Event is in Tynemouth in May followed by Parkstone in June. Many thanks to Roger Hakes and the Youth Sub-Committee for organising this series.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the ILCA Women coaching day at Queen Mary is scheduled in March and one of our sponsors Wildwind Holidays are hosting a dedicated ILCA Women’s Clinic in May before we return to Rutland for the Women’s ILCA Regatta.
ILCA UK are now offering a grant of £150 to any club that wants to run an ILCA Women’s Coaching Day at their Club, please contact Fiona Attwell who, aided by Jonathan Stirling, will be ready to help. There will some conditions attached - like, you have to do a write-up!
I would like to remind you also that ILCA UK are looking for more women and also younger jurors so if you are interested please let me know (or Ellie or any other committee member). For jurors we can offer development opportunities at our events and the support of the RYA.
Please also add your name to our coach register for opportunities to coach at our events.
ILCA UK Chair blog #122
Dreams and targets….
Having fun in ILCAs
So why do you sail an ILCA or encourage your children to do so? Well, we all probably started in different ways so let’s begin with today. Yesterday we sailed one race in Queen Mary before it got too windy and I was there for a number of reasons. I certainly fancied a blast in the strong wind even though it was cold – what could be more exhilarating? I also knew I would be content afterwards that I had made the effort and had some decent exercise on a Sunday morning. It was also a chance to meet up with fellow ILCA sailors and friends and at the back of my mind, it’s the opportunity to consolidate training after my Malta camp.
As I have said many times, I am lucky that (ILCA) sailing has become a passion for life and I had the opportunity for it to become so. It’s also “friends for life” – at the Malta camp for example, there were new friends and old from Queen Mary, but also sailors I grew up with – like Sean Craig I have known since I was 12, my brother Theo, Conard Simpson who I have also known for over 40 years – and others like Alan Davis who I have raced with since the ‘80s. As well as this social network, sailing as a master provides an impetus for physical fitness and a therapy for mental health.
Of course that’s not how it started. I loved the competition, the aspiration to keep improving and the sailing itself. I had dreams and targets but certainly wasn’t thinking this is a sport for life. Nor was I thinking of the many benefits like building independence or resilience. But as parents, we can support the aspirations of our children in the sport, no matter what they are, knowing about these long-term benefits. Some just want to improve or enjoy the social interaction or the vibe of competition while others will have dreams to make it to the top.
The aspiration to improve is important to many (not all), no matter whether you are a master or youth sailor, a club sailor or competing at the top and this is the time of year to start turning those aspirations into reality. Developing targets is essential in my view as they provide the motivation to improve and train hard. Sustaining practice / training is never easy and personally I can’t do it without a target. Setting targets that are achievable and realistic is not easy. I guess Robert Scheidt found it easy to set his target for the 1996 Olympics - Gold - but he was the best in the world and World Champion, but it is much harder for the rest of us to set realistic targets. Some psychologists don’t like results-based targets and prefer performance-based ones like “I would like to race really well in this event”. An unrealistic results-based target can have a significant dampening effort on performance if the competition starts poorly, with the outcome that not alone is the target missed but an otherwise decent result is also missed. Also, targets are fine before the competition or even before races, but once the racing starts, the emphasis must be on performance not results; executing the race plan and doing all the correct things at the correct time not thinking about results. Of course, the target could be anything from the Worlds to a club series.
Once I have a target in mind, I like to start with a realistic assessment of strengths and weaknesses in the core areas needed to improve and set practice / training objectives against these. For example, if pin-end starts was a weakness, I could start practicing on my own at a mark, focussing on technique and timing, and over time improving (i.e. my aim is to get a perfect start 30% of the time in training, raising in a month to 80%). This can then be extended to smaller training groups introducing a competitive element and finally starting at the pin-end in training regattas. The format or approach varies, maybe it is just going out 30mins before the start of an evening club race to work on something specific.
That aspiration to improve is important to me, but it is certainly not the only reason I keep sailing an ILCA. And I am sure that’s true for many of you.
Snippets
2025 ILCA Handbook is now available online.
ILCA UK Events
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair blog #121
Women participation….
A quick plug for our first regatta in the new Regional Youth series at Datchet on 1st/2nd February. At this series we are encouraging all sailors but especially less experienced sailors to come and experience one design ILCA racing in a relaxed enviornment. The reservoir is full, we have a class coach there to support you and we are trialing trackers!
I wanted to return to a regular theme in this blog around female participation. In Paris 2024 and also Tokyo 2020 we had equal numbers of men and women in the ILCA7 and ILCA6 fleets (for a little of the history of the ILCA6 in the Olympics see blog #26 ) with also an increased focus on having more women as race officials, jurors and team managers / coaches at the Olympic Games. It is only right that women are given the same opportunity as men to do these roles if they want. And in ILCA UK we have been working hard on this and two years ago we launched our survey on this subject, receiving 108 responses.
Since then, we have set-up a WAG (women and girls) sub-committee led by Fiona Attwell. We have worked to ensure all write-ups on our events and our prize-givings feature both men and women prominently (as these are done by volunteers we are not always perfect in this regard). The survey found that women want to race with men most of the time, but not always and we have run separate racing for women at one of our events in both the ILCA4s and ILCA6s.
Last July we ran the first Women’s ILCA Regatta at Rutland (with very positive feedback – video here ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video) followed by an ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club in October. Both events were well attended and demonstrate the demand for specific training opportunities.
In December, Daisy Collingridge delivered an inspiring talk about Women in Sailing to a packed London Corinthians SC, and Ellie Cumpsty followed this up with a session on Racing Rules last week.
We have also encouraged more women - youth, seniors and masters - to sail in our open ILCA4 fleet and at a masters event last year we had a £10 entry fee to encourage that. However, numbers of women at masters events (in ILCA4 and ILCA6) remain too low and we have so far not figured out how to address this.
Looking ahead to 2025, Daisy will be repeating her talk on 28th February at Parkstone YC, the ILCA Women coaching day at Queen Mary is scheduled in March and one of our sponsors Wildwind Holidays are hosting a dedicated ILCA Women’s Clinic in May before we return to Rutland for the Women’s ILCA Regatta.
If you would like to host an ILCA Women’s Coaching Day at your Club, please contact Fiona Attwell who, aided by Jonathan Stirling, will be ready to help.
We have also published our Misconduct policy based on World Sailing interpretation of Rule 69 (misconduct). This allows reports to be made to the protest committee for a wide range of poor behaviour. Unlike in the past where only serious misconduct was heard under rule, the protest committee is now able to give a range a penalties, starting from a verbal warning. As there remains (some) bullying and misogynistic behaviour in ILCA racing, from club racing through to National events, and as this has no place in our class or sport, I would encourage you to report it to the protest committee where observed.
ILCA UK would like to see more women and also younger race officials, jurors and coaches so if you are interested please let me know (or Ellie or any other committee member). For jurors we can offer development opportunities at our events and the support of the RYA. We are working on a development pathway for women coaches and can offer opportunities as race officials, where we have already made steady progress.
ILCA UK Events
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar for training and also our first Youth Series event at Datchet on 1st/ 2nd February.
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Entries for the 2025 RYA Youth National Championships are now open
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair Blog #120
First regatta of the year
I was lucky enough to spend last week in Malta at a masters training clinic and regatta thus avoiding the cold snap at home. We had six days of sailing in mainly sunny, 12 to 18 knots with a reminder of how much fun ILCA sailing can be once the weather warms up. We had one race in 25 knots which I would call “survival” conditions, so what are the key factors in a race like this?
Firstly not to capsize, which is obviously not quick but more importantly for masters, any time in the water is incredibly draining of energy. Upwind extra time is needed to prepare for a tack, choosing a moment where the water is a little flatter and not in the middle of a big gust. I normally ease my kicker slightly before the tack firstly as I can’t get under the boom when it is fully on (catching the boom is a major source of capsizing) but also the risk of the boat stalling and getting stuck head to wind is reduced. Running downwind needs to be controlled - best to have the cunningham off and the kicker eased beyond “block to block” but not too much and don’t ease the outhaul. Most stable is very slightly by the lee but boom at 75 degrees and leech at 90 degrees. In the big gusts, sheet in a bit.
Another aspect of “survival” conditions is to avoid manoeuvring around other boats as much as possible. Start in the middle and avoid the ends. Don’t tack so much and approach the windward mark on starboard, making sure you don’t have to squeeze around the mark. In multi-day regattas, recovery is key as it is just not possible to recover fully after each day.
On another topic, many of you will have seen the announcement of significant funding for the British Sailing Team (BST) for this Olympic cycle. This is of course great news for the BST but also for ILCA UK as it means we continue to have brilliant, full-time sailors coming to some of our National events. Funding like this is now essential in all elite sport and it indirectly benefits sailing in the UK. But it is important to understand that this funding is ring-fenced totally for the elite end and this money does not trickle down to youth sailing or even ILCA UK. I don’t know the detailed conditions laid down by UK Sport but in principle they are funding TeamGB to win Olympic medals, not fund a development pathway or participation programs.
We can though see the benefits of this in the ILCA community more than any other class. All our sailors can see the standards attained by the BST and aspire to improve our own sailing, whether youths or masters. Best practice and techniques trickle down to us. We can relate directly to what it is like to sail an ILCA.
There are two aspects worth raising through. Firstly, should the sailing community, or more specifically the ILCA community, be doing more to financially support our top sailors? While this does happen in some clubs, there appears limited programs that are transparent to the community as a whole. Secondly, there remains a massive funding gap between top youth sailors and full-time seniors and there isn’t enough money to support that, like in all sports. It remains hard to know which sailors have the attitude, commitment and talent to make the leap and there isn’t money to fund everyone with potential. The best solution probably centres around better “talent identification” approaches as so far many of these continue modest in their successes.
Mark Lyttle
ILCA UK Chair
ILCA UK Events
You can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar for training and also our first Youth Series event at Datchet on 1st/ 2nd February.
ILCA UK training - all remaining training for winter/spring is now open. BOOK here
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair Blog #119
2025 here we come…..
Happy New Year to all of you, part of the ILCA UK community, new and old!
I have never been one of sailing in really cold conditions, but yesterday in the London area we had a positively topical 12 degrees and 15 knots which allowed me my first race of the year – sometimes you just must pick and choose when to sail at this time of year. But no doubt many of you are thinking ahead to the upcoming season. If you are not a regular member of ILCA UK, would you consider joining – it is just over £3 per month? By joining you become a signed-up member of the ILCA UK community, supporting our efforts to be an inclusive and welcoming class for everyone. Your membership supports the international class (30% of the fee goes to them) ensuring that ILCAs built are nearly identical over decades. That means whether you buy a new or second-hand boat, your investment is protected by maintaining a great market for boats - in some ways your membership pays for itself in lower depreciation! Of course your membership supports the activities of the class in the UK which is run for the most part by volunteers (and the super efforts of our class managers Ellie and Leo) – we have around 55 volunteers on our main committee and sub-committees – including 10 National events, our active training program, support for the Grand Prix circuit and club training, our new Youth Series, our Women’s’ regatta…
We are going to be working on bringing some membership offerings to members to boast the reasons for joining as in the long run, I believe that everyone who sails an ILCA should be member to help maintain the integrity and structure of our class and sport.
Looking ahead, our main National events are the calendar now. We have five National Opens (formerly Qualifiers) including a visit to East Lothian (have we been there before?) in September. We head to Pwllheli for our Nationals, a true festival of sailing. Having done many great events there in the past, I believe we can combine super sailing waters (lovely waves in a sou’wester) with a beach resort like venue! Master sailors should be preparing for lots this season. We have an event at Parkstone where we plan to try and sail in Bournemouth Bay – we don’t often get that opportunity and the last time I did it in an ILCA was the British Nationals in 1983 (one 2.5 hour race a day 😊). This is followed by the Masters Nationals and then the Europeans both in Hayling Island. Please note we have not finally confirmed the date of the Masters inlands in Nov.
Finally, we have our new regional Youth Series sponsored by Harken. The ILCA UK Youth Series aims to encourage youth participation in ILCA racing at regional level across the UK. The series is made up of a number of separate events held throughout the 2025 sailing season, the first of which is at Datchet on 1st/ 2nd February (entries open tomorrow 7th January). These events are for all levels of experience and we encourage club sailors to come and try some racing at the next level. To support that ILCA UK will be providing coaching on and off the water, especially to support those coming for the first time. Also we are trailing the use of trackers at this event – come and see what that’s all about.
ILCA UK Events
In the meantime, you can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
See our calendar for training and also our first Youth Series event at Datchet on 1st/2nd February.
ILCA UK training - open training (see portal / website for locations) January 11/12 - ILCA4/6/7. Please note bookings close on Monday so please book before then if you would like to join in. Non RTG lite ILCA4 sailors - please note we need multiples of 5 or 6 sailors at each location in order to run this.
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair Blog #118
Happy Holidays
Wishing all sailors, supporters, volunteers and everyone connected with ILCA UK a fantastic holiday break.
Ellie and Leo are also taking a break and will be back with you in the new year.
In the meantime, remember to renew your membership for 2025.
Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
ILCA UK Events
See our calendar for training and also our first Youth Series event at Datchet on 1st/2nd February.
Draycote Youth Open Event on December 30th https://portal.ilca.uk/event/2024-YS . It is open to ILCA 4, 6 & 7, for Youth Sailors; Age 23 and Under
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair Blog #117
Last chair blog…
As we come to the end of 2024 it has been another successful year for the class. From Paris 2024, through the eleven National events we have run, the thousand or more training days, the first ILCA Women’s Regatta, Grands Prix around the country, the hundreds for sailors from aged 14 to over 75 competing abroad and those club racing weekend after weekend. Many thanks to Ellie and Leo and all our great volunteers.
You’ll hear from me again in January as i am going to take two week off this Christmas / New Year.
In the meantime, you can now renew your membership for 2025. Not a member yet? JOIN NOW
ILCA UK Events
See our calendar for training and also our first Youth Series event at Datchet on 1st/2nd February.
Draycote Youth Open Event on December 30th https://portal.ilca.uk/event/2024-YS . It is open to ILCA 4, 6 & 7, for Youth Sailors; Age 23 and Under
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair blog #116
Tim Law …..
I am sure there was limited sailing this weekend, but we did manage a couple of races at Queen Mary on Sunday. Tough conditions greeted the 13 sailors with a cold northerly with big gusts of 25 to 30 knots and massive shifts. Best to describe the conditions as “survival” but exhilarating all the same. So what to make of the conditions? I wrote the following for our group, which may interest some of you.
Upwind stability is the key to keeping the boat moving quickly and up to 25 knots this usually means lots of mainsheet trimming (dumping it in the gusts) to keep the heel steady and the boat moving. When the gusts are 25 knots and over and swinging through 25 degrees, I think the emphasis shifts to steering - rapid push away of tiller before the boat heels in a lift and rapid pull of the tiller in a header – all with the aim of keeping the heel steady (easier said than done). Lots of kicker above 25 knots if fast if you can manage it but the boat is very susceptible to stalling, especially in a big, sudden, heading gust as the boat slows. So I often ease it a little to make it easier to steer. In any case, I can’t get under the boom with kicker fully on, so must ease it a bit for tacks. The trick is the push the tiller hard to get through the tack quickly and avoid stalling. It your kicker is still tight, ease the mainsheet right off after the tack to rebuild speed and avoid stalling. Running in these conditions is quite stable, if you go slightly by the lee with the mainsheet at 75 degrees (the leech will be at 90). In the big gusts coming up slightly on to a board reach is usually a disaster, as the boat is hard to control at speed.
The main part of the blog this week comes from Tim Law. He has been a Great Grand Master World Champion several times but was also British National Champion 50 years ago this summer:
I feel a little daunted writing this following on from our Chairman’s excellent previous missives. He has asked me to write this to offer my reflection on my very long and happy association with this special little dinghy we now call an ILCA.
Before the Laser/ ILCA came into my life I learned to sail and race when I was about seven in an International Cadet initially crewing my elder brother Chris sailing on the river Thames near Teddington. We were never taught or given lessons like is the norm now we just had fun learning by experience! The first year we raced we came literally last in every single race until one hot and light wind Saturday afternoon at the end of that summer when we managed somehow to drift across the finish line in first place. I was so excited I tapped my brother on his thigh probably too hard in order to congratulate him and he responded by punching me !
Chris was always very focused and probably as a consequence went on to be a member of four Olympic teams and I didn’t ! After I left school I didn’t sail for a some time as I went to work driving a delivery van around London to earn enough money to be able go travelling around the world. When I returned from that trip in May 1975 I looked out of the window of my Dad’s flat and noticed a little yellow racing dinghy sitting on the grass below. My Dad told me that it was a new type of singlehanded dinghy then called a Laser that he had bought and that I should have a go in it as he felt that he was too old at fifty five years old to handle it !
Taking up that opportunity but not owning a roof rack I loaded the boat onto a mattress and then onto my old minivan and drove it up to Queen Mary Sailing Club where there happened to be an Open meeting that weekend I entered that event and had my first wonderful Laser sailing experience which has had me hooked ever since.
I liked everything about the Laser and still feel the same about the modern ILCA today , nearly fifty years later, particularly because of the total one design concept that fully tests the sailors physical, mental and tactical strengths because everyone has the same kit. Those attributes lay the foundation for the ILCA for it to become the most popular racing dinghy in the world catering for men and women, young and old.
The phenomenal success of the ILCA and its popularity is due to Ian Bruce and Bruce Kirby’s excellent strict one design but I believe also due the constitution of a very effective International Class association backed up by strong National and regional Class associations, with the U.K. Class association always being a stand out. Having that strict one design concept involving minimal expensive fittings etc made the ILCA obviously more affordable to a wider audience. The strict licensing by the Class association of the worldwide builders has maintained this one design goal and means we can now travel anywhere around the U.K. and the world and borrow/ charter a boat that feels just like your own boat that you race at home.
But the class has also recognised the benefits of allowing gradual and careful development of the boat and its equipment such as more effective and practical control lines. My current ILCA 7 essentially offers me the same challenge as did my Laser in 1975 but over the subsequent years parts such as the original wooden grab rails, tiller, rudder blade and centreboard have been upgraded to modern materials and the new sail has been evolved significantly from the original very light cloth Dacron sail. And of course since those early days both the ILCA 6 and ILCA 4 have been introduced to compliment the original Standard ILCA 7 offering the more people the opportunity to join in on the fun.
After that wonderful first weekend Open meeting at QMSC I spent the next five years racing in most of the UK Laser events and qualified for the second ever Senior Worlds at Keil in 1976 and then the next two Worlds after that in Brazil and Australia which were and are still unforgettable events. I met and made many friends during those times racing Lasers who I am still racing now having rather belatedly joined with them competing in the fantastic ILCA Masters circuit. I have recently competed in events in lovely places such as Oman, New Zealand , Mexico and all over Europe.
Ian Bruce and Bruce Kirby thought they were just designing a boat and they did but by creating the ILCA the way they did they have also created a fraternity of people around the world who all share the same values and the same an appreciation of their little creation. And their ILCA has also helped develop a group of international sailors who are unsurpassed in their achievements at the Olympics and Americas Cup Such as Sir Russel Coutts and Sir Ben Ainslie. Early this year I watched from the water the best ILCA sailors race in the really windy Senior Worlds off Adelaide in Australia. It was the most impressive sailing I have ever experienced. These modern ILCA sailors are great athletes and have taken our sport to a level I could never have imagined back when I first raced the then Laser in 1975. They are also great people who are more than happy to support and help Class members and particularly Masters sailors. Our own rock star Micky Beckett has been fantastic, and doing just that coaching a group of us over the past couple of years.
Since 1975 I have always owned an ILCA and I plan to always own one. The ILCA and the class are an important part of my and my family’s lives. Next year will mark 50 years since I first won the National Championships at Paignton and it is my intention to enter for the 2025 Nationals at Pwllheli with my current aim of not finishing last !
Here’s to the next fifty years of ILCA fun.
ILCA UK Events
See our calendar for training and also our first Youth Series event at Datchet on 1st/2nd February.
Other news
ILCA UK - Dinghy Show Information, including Discount code!
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair Blog #115
what makes us strong and 2025
Darren clarke
I have been following a discussion in another class about advantages and disadvantages of promoting itself as the "Pathway to Pro" while continuing to be inclusive of sailors of different ages and experience. Well, I think we have learnt some lessons about that in the ILCA class. As a young lad in my twenties, the Laser (as it was then) was considered the most competitive sailing class in the world but of course the pathway to the Olympics was blocked. You had a choice, put on 15kg and sail a Finn or move to keelboats like the Soling and Star, which were expensive and in many (not all) ways the antithesis of the Laser. As the Laser was being considered in 1992 for the Olympics, many predicted the death of the class, with reduced numbers and participation but it never happened. Why?
Well, the answer is probably complex and hard to prove, but I think we can partly see why looking at the fleet here in the UK. To my mind what you need is:
inclusive language - we welcome sailors of all ages and experiences with a choice of three rigs
zero tolerance to poor behaviour and language - of course this is never going to be perfect, but it needs to be called out where seen and supported by a robust policy
national events that are open - yes many may be youth sailors but not exclusively - the focus is on high quality racing for all
top Olympic sailors competing against club sailors - one of our autumn events had two medal race sailors from Paris 24 racing with almost 50 others in the ILCA7 for example
no teams or squads - we are lucky to usually have enough places at international events that everyone who wants to can go. Yes the RYA run squads for around 15 men / women but it is a small ratio our fleet
non-promotion of rankings - they just aren't central to our class
regional open training for everyone with national training available to those in the top half of the fleet
a national championship that is a "festival of sailing".
Of course, the ILCA remains strong in clubs around the country for other reasons too like a ready supply of quality second hand boats.
Continued success requires us to protect this culture.
Looking ahead to 2025, ILCA UK is delighted to announce your new Youth Series which we will see in our calendar. This consists of eight open meetings aiming to encourage youth participation in ILCA racing at regional level across the UK. The series is made up of a number of separate events across the country, held throughout the 2025 sailing season. We hope this will provide a next level for club sailors without the step to National events. The first of these events will be at Datchet Water Sailing Club on 1st/2nd February.
Our Qualifiers are being renamed National Opens to clearly signal to thousands of ILCA sailors across the country that these are open and provide high quality racing at a National level. There is no change in format nor in the qualification for international events. While some will be disappointed that the term Qualifier is no longer used, the vast majority of sailors attend these events for high quality racing with the need for qualification almost redundant.
Finally in terms of 2025 events, this spring we are only having two National Opens as a result of a particularly busy schedule. As you may know we can only start the season after the Dinghy Show in late February and have to schedule around the RYA Youth Nationals. In addition in 2025, the ILCA6 Youth Europeans start early in April and the Palma regatta will see many top ILCA6 and ILCA7 sailors away from the end of March. In addition, we have heard from many sailors, volunteers and parents that running three National events on consecutive weekends in March is just too much. I would also bring to your attention that that the schedule for our autumn events is subject to change (to be confirmed shortly).
ILCA UK Winter Training
For ILCA4s who missed the winter training program, we are creating 6 x ILCA 4 tickets for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training, with a waiting list of 6 - on the basis that when that waiting list is full we can then convert it to a further group of 6.
See our calendar for more
National Training eligibility has been updated to top 50% in 2/4 of the events, with sailors who have transitioned to the ILCA 6 after the ILCA Nationals able to include their ILCA Nationals event in the ILCA 4 if they were top 50% male/female as appropriate. Note that 4/5 Jan 2025 National Training has been reschedule to 7/8 December 2024.
All other sailors welcome to come for open training the same weekend at WPNSA which will run in separate groups alongside and we are also increasing the number of ILCA 6 tickets from 12 to 24 for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training.
Other news
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair blog # 114
media and digitalisation…..
I thought a short blog this week on media and digitalisation in ILCA / dinghy racing might provoke some debate. While we have seen this to the fore in the America’s Cup, SailGP and big boat racing, it is much less obvious in dinghy sailing, although slowly coming into focus. I personally believe SailGP has done a brilliant job in promoting sailing and making it something that sailing fans want to watch. Live streaming on Youtube is brilliant and is still available to watch after the event. You can focus in on just the racing or the full show with interviews and background. Clearly the racing is fast and furious even in light winds with live action both on the boats and from helicopters, which makes it attractive to many sailors. On the other hand, how easy is it ever going to be to explain intricacies of tacking upwind and gybing downwind to a non-sailing audience, even with great commentators? And this is the challenge for the sport at Olympic level – how to attract a big audience, especially non-sailors, without different formats (like short races / racing on a reach / winner takes all races) that move away from the essence of the sailboat racing we know? The debate is at the centre of our sport today – of course you need the “eyeballs” but how much do you change to get them.
The challenge for dinghy racing is bringing in the media package of SailGP in a cost-effective manner. It is very expensive to provide the high qualify media coverage that we see there and beyond the economics of even many of our largest world championships, let alone national championships or open meetings. Live streaming (on Facebook from a RIB) of a dinghy race even with a high-quality camera is not going to promote our sport in the way we would like (although I believe it is a starter). For many years now we have seen GPS trackers supplied in some events, allowing to us to “watch” races live (or indeed rerun them). While the accuracy and reliability of these have improved over time, opinion is divided on how attractive this is for sailing fans, let alone non-sailors.
As the price of these trackers drop, recently there has been increased focus on using them to spot boats that are over the starting line. There are a number of different technologies / brands in the market and we have seen trails taking place in a number of classes. There is no doubt this technology could be a game-changer at big championships in particular, eliminating general recalls (and of course no boat gets away with being over the line! ). But is has to be implemented in a way that is fair – reliable and accurate in fleets of 70 to 100 boats, with protocols in place to manage. And there remain key questions - do we really want technology in an ILCA that gives you “distance / time to the line” rather than just spotting boats over early? Once these trackers are in use, it starts to have implications for event coaching – imagine having access to your race track around the course combined with an open source wind and tide feed, open to all sailors. And there is the opportunity for use on training too.
In ILCA racing, GPS cameras and watches are not allowed (like many dinghy classes) – is this really best for the sport? Think of what Strava has done for promoting participation in cycling, allowing publishing your latest cycle, developing social interactions and even giving you a ranking on a certain road segment – imagine the conversation at the club-house “well I didn’t win the race, but had the fastest speed or I won the reach”!
Of course, in ILCA UK we try to make the most of media to publicise our events – see the race reports below published on Yachts&Yachting.com but so much of the action is also taking place on social media and for us we must continue to invest in high quality short videos and photos for social media. This is the way younger sailors are consuming content on our sport. If you go on Instagram you will see loads of content on ILCAs and ILCA sailors that is being fed to them directly based on their interests.
Snippets
ILCA UK Winter Training
For ILCA4s who missed the winter training program, we are creating 6 x ILCA 4 tickets for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training, with a waiting list of 6 - on the basis that when that waiting list is full we can then convert it to a further group of 6.
See our calendar for more
National Training eligibility has been updated to top 50% in 2/4 of the events, with sailors who have transitioned to the ILCA 6 after the ILCA Nationals able to include their ILCA Nationals event in the ILCA 4 if they were top 50% male/female as appropriate. Note that 4/5 Jan 2025 National Training has been reschedule to 7/8 December 2024.
All other sailors welcome to come for open training the same weekend at WPNSA which will run in separate groups alongside and we are also increasing the number of ILCA 6 tickets from 12 to 24 for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training.
Other news
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Tri360 Challenge Fundraising – with Andrew Simpson
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair Blog #113
Photo by Darren Clarke
Just a short blog this week. Last week I mentioned we have set-up a Youth Regional Co-ordination Group with Mike Powell to help share information across the regions. Part of this is to encourage clubs in a region to work together to provide racing and training. I have included the poster with QR codes for the regions in the blog email (sadly we can’t publish the QR codes on a public website).
Below you will see the write-ups for the Inlands including the ILCA 6 class where the women and men fleets were split. 19 girls competed in their own fleet. To quote : This is a bit controversial but I believe it's a good thing every now and then, as it's a great welcoming opportunity to the girls moving up from an ILCA 4 and masters in the class.
Over the next week or two we will do updates on the schedule for 2025.
Snippets
ILCA UK Winter Training
See our calendar for more
National Training eligibility has been updated to top 50% in 2/4 of the events, with sailors who have transitioned to the ILCA 6 after the ILCA Nationals able to include their ILCA Nationals event in the ILCA 4 if they were top 50% male/female as appropriate. Note that 4/5 Jan 2025 National Training has been reschedule to 7/8 December 2024.
All other sailors welcome to come for open training the same weekend at WPNSA which will run in separate groups alongside and we are also increasing the number of ILCA 6 tickets from 12 to 24 for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training.
For ILCA4s who missed the winter training program, we are creating 6 x ILCA 4 tickets for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training, with a waiting list of 6 - on the basis that when that waiting list is full we can then convert it to a further group of 6.
Other news
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 6 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA UK ILCA 4 Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 ILCA UK Inland Championships at Grafham Water Sailing Club
ILCA Qualifier 6 WPNSA Day 2 October 2024 – no racing but loads of photos here and here
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Tri360 Challenge Fundraising – with Andrew Simpson
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy
ILCA UK Chair blog #112
ILCA UK events….
Trying out for the rodeo!
As the season winds down and we start to look forward to winter club racing and training, I wanted to reflect on the ILCA UK events and also how the class can support you in your club efforts.
Some facts on our events - we ran 13 events – the Nationals, Master Nationals, six “qualifiers” and the Inlands (nine in total) and two Masters events ,one in July at WPNSA and the Master Inlands in October. In addition, we ran the Welsh Championships and a Youth Event at Queen Mary. Looking at the first nine events, we had 1,336 entries which is an amazing number. It was marginally lower than 2023 despite the Master Nationals being in Sept (with lower numbers) and one qualifier being in Pwllheli, where we would expect lower numbers (still over 100 entries). The average entry across nine events is about 150. It was 9% lower than the 2022 total, which was the first full year after Covid and a spike in competition numbers in general. The ILCA4 average entry across eight events was close to 50, on a par with 2023 but with numbers looking a bit higher in the second half of the year. With an average entry over 70, the ILCA6 remains our biggest and arguable most competitive class with continued robust numbers. After a slower start to 2024, ILCA7 numbers are at their best for many years with an average of close to 45 in last six events. I think it indicates that the class is in robust health.
This autumn the weather has been particularly difficult with both very strong and very light winds and this appears to be a growing trend. As a result, in the last few events we have started to modify our approach somewhat, firstly around the schedule and secondly around communications. With forecasts more accurate than they were, we can predict when it is likely the best time of day to race, meaning holding ashore, starting early or late or abandoning / cancelling promptly and I think we are going to see more of this. Related to that is the need to communicate our sailing plans as early as possible so everyone is prepared. This has always happened to some extent but we will see greater emphaise going forward.
Part of our success is our inclusive approach, and we need to continue to make sure our events are welcoming to all ages and a range of competency levels. An example has been an improvement in behaviour on the water through encouragement to do penalty turns and tone down language. Of course, that’s never going to be perfect, but we must continue to respect each other given the self-policing nature of the sport.
The location of our events continues to be a challenge. WPNSA has the resources to cope with our numbers with a mixture of in harbour and Weymouth Bay sailing, but we also visited Brightlingsea in March and Pwllheli for the first time in many years in September. Finding hosts to cater for 150 boats at the right time of year remains difficult. I know some of you feel we should split the fleets, but there is strong support for all three rigs racing together. As I said recently, we continue to try and make our events as cheap as we can – that’s why we run them at a deficit!
Finally, I wanted to mention the volunteers that make these events happen. Firstly, we have the many committee and sub-committee members planning and organising – we use Basecamp to help with this and there are currently 55 people listed! At the events themselves, we have a great team helping out. Brett has provided me with the numbers for Qualifiers 5 and 6 and the Inlands - the race management team afloat including mark layers and finish, numbers 18 to 20 per event. Over those three events we had 45 RIBS each resourced with volunteers. We also have volunteers helping with tally, bridge, registration, results and prize-giving. While many of these volunteers are parents, some are not. Overall it is a great community effort and my thanks to every one of you.
The class is of course involves many of you who do not go to these events and we want to continue to support club and local sailing. This year we tried to put more focus around Grand Prix events with John Ling and the Regional reps and we will be reviewing this over the next month or so. We also have set-up a Youth Regional Co-ordination Group with Mike Powell to help share information across the regions. Part of this is to encourage clubs in a region to work together to provide racing and training. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago where Queen Mary had 24 women doing a coaching / training weekend ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club. While this was not an ILCA UK event we are happy to put these events in our calendar (where they are open) and provide publicity through our channels. So if you want to organise an event at your club and attract others, we can point you to coaches, use any poster you have and add to the ILCA UK calendar.
ILCA UK Chair blog # 111
Hannah’s blog…..
Hannah’s words of wisdom (debatable)
Hold on tight everybody. Mark has taken his life into his own hands and passed over the baton of the next blog to me. What could possibly go wrong?
The first place I would like to start is to say thank you, actually. I owe an awful lot to the ILCA class, and the wonderful people who are involved in it. It has been a friendly and supportive environment to learn, train and race in ever since I first stepped into an ILCA 4 a Very Long Time Ago, through to when Ken Falcon – then UKLA President – had to sail my ILCA 6 back to shore at a qualifier in Plymouth because it was too windy and wavy to do it myself, through to being the first female to win the ILCA 6 Nationals, through to being selected – at least a decade later than originally planned and hoped for – to go to my first Olympics. It's been a long road, and I’m very grateful that that road has been in the ILCA class.
“What could possibly go wrong?” – a mantra that I’ve had to use quite a lot in my fairly lengthy sailing career to date. There are many routes to the same destination, and it is absolutely a-okay to take one of the more scenic ones. The view can sometimes be better that way.
My entire career actually started as a skive out of P.E. at school that has got really out of hand. I was completely terrible at pretty much all school sports, and my reports used to read something along the lines of: “Attainment C, Effort 1. Tries hard but has made only limited progress. Future lies elsewhere.” (I love a bit of irony.) When it came up as an option that I could get out of all the activities I was so bad at, and use my £2 weekly pocket money to go sailing on Wednesday afternoons instead, it seemed like a bit of a no-brainer.
I wasn’t initially a particularly naturally talented sailor, and I didn’t take the conventional route through youth sailing. I was often left out of squads at first time of trying, and it was only really when I took a gap year after school and went self-funded around the European circuit that spring and summer that I started to have some results that showed any real promise.
Following that year, I was asked to train alongside the British Sailing Team, which I just about managed to balance with studying at Cambridge. It wasn’t all ‘plain sailing’ (is there any such thing?!) from there onwards though. I made the decision to sail full time after university, but was dropped from the team 15 months later, and retired (badly, because here we are) after blowing all my savings trying to keep going.
I made it back into the team four years later, after crowdfunding and working my way through the 2018 season, which culminated in finishing 4th at the World Cup in Japan. Despite its many challenges, I’m incredibly grateful for that period of time in my life and the perspective, adventures, and experiences it gave me. Everything from trapping a stranger into a revolving door compartment with me when I tried to take a rolled sail through it and got stuck, to getting Ben Elvin’s van impounded in Barcelona… those are the things that make you smile and tell stories about when you get old... well, as old as me.
One of the first questions that people ask when I say I am a sailor is: “Oh, do your parents sail?” and when I tell them that they don’t, they always look incredibly puzzled and ask how on earth I got into it. It still bothers me that there is a perception that you can’t make it in sailing without a family history in the sport. My parents are tree surgeons, but are wonderfully supportive of my sailing and have learned their port from starboard now, although I do still have to ask for a picture rather than a description when I’m away sailing and Duncan sends a Sailingfast parcel to their house instead of mine. Otherwise I get: “well there’s some yellow string, and some red string, and a few metal bits.”
As Micky said in his blog, one of the most frequent questions that you get asked when the Games is over is: “so, what’s next?” – and just like Micky, I also still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I do know that there’s a lot of aspects to sailing that I personally feel could be improved through some small positive changes – be that female participation, grassroots inclusion, or financial barriers to progression up the high-performance pathway – and I would love to be a part of helping to bring some of those changes about.
It’s been amazing to watch the women’s America’s Cup and the increasing opportunities for females in sailing, but there is a long way still to go. We have a real gender imbalance in top level coaches, it was a shame to see so few women in the youth America’s Cup boats, and it seemed like a missed opportunity to have just one race for the women’s AC final, when there was such an eager audience.
I’m really aware that I was incredibly privileged to grow up by the coast in Lymington so I was exposed to the sport at a young age, and I was an only child, so my parents were able to traipse around the country at weekends taking me to sailing events. That being said, I have definitely done the majority of my career on a shoestring, and that had moments of being very difficult. I also understand how hard it is to be on the wrong side of selection decisions, which is why I’m now sitting on the Youth Selection Committee. I really believe that difficult decisions can be made well, and delivered well, to keep as many talented and enthusiastic people in the sport as possible.
If anyone reading this has any great ideas about how to change the world, please do get in touch! I’d love to hear from you. Sailors do love to talk about sailing, after all.
I will leave you by disclosing the best piece of top-secret coaching advice I have received to date (there is always still time) – and that was from my Mum at the Optimist Nationals, when I was 10-years-old. Lots of other parents were talking about the tide, and which side of the beat to go up, but she nailed the ‘applies-to-every-situation’ tip with: “make sure you eat your sandwiches and mind your head.”
Happy sailing everyone – and see you on the water.
Hannah
Snippets
ILCA UK Winter Training
Spaces are available for Regional training on 16/17Th Nov See our calendar for more
National Training eligibility has been updated to top 50% in 2/4 of the events, with sailors who have transitioned to the ILCA 6 after the ILCA Nationals able to include their ILCA Nationals event in the ILCA 4 if they were top 50% male/female as appropriate.
We are also increasing the number of ILCA 6 tickets from 12 to 24 for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training
For ILCA4s who missed the winter training program, we are creating 6 x ILCA 4 tickets for the 7/8 Dec WPNSA All-Regions Open Training, with a waiting list of 6 - on the basis that when that waiting list is full we can then convert it to a further group of 6.
Other news
ILCA UK Women’s Regatta video (new)
ILCA UK ILCA 6 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
ILCA UK ILCA 7 Masters Inland Championship at Rutland Sailing Club
Women In Sailing Talk with British Sailing Team’s Daisy Collingridge
ILCA Women's Coaching Day at Queen Mary Sailing Club
Tri360 Challenge Fundraising – with Andrew Simpson
Noble Marine & Rooster Qualifier WPNSA write ups: ILCA 7, ILCA 6, ILCA 4
Noble Marine ILCA 6 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Noble Marine ILCA 7 Masters UK National Championships 2024 at Hayling Island Sailing Club
Olympian raises £18k by raffling Paris 2024 boat
ILCA Midlands Grand Prix at Staunton Harold Sailing Club
Northern ILCA Circuit Finale at Dovestone Sailing Club
ILCA Thames Valley Travellers Series Open at Frensham Pond Sailing Club
2024 ILCA Master Europeans Sets New Participation Record - EurILCA
Sailingfast ILCA Welsh National Championships 2024 at Plas Heli Welsh National Sailing Academy