ILCA UK Chair Blog #125

Feb 17

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