ILCA UK Chair blog #112

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.