ILCA UK Chair Blog #138
ILCA sailing is much like other sports when it comes to analysing races – it is all in the eye of the beholder. Everyone looks at it from their own perspective like “I was in prime position on the right until the wind shifted left” versus “those on the right were always buried”. Well, it is not surprising. There is a well-known case study (at least to sports performance analysts) published in 1952 about an American football game “They saw a game”*. Quick summary - different people experience different incidents from a total matrix of incidents in a game that they could have experienced, based on the reactivation of previous experiences i.e. what they brought into the game. The games exist for each person and they only exist based on certain events that have significance for them. They select for themselves.
Obviously, this is written from a fan perspective but I guess it also applies to participants and it’s what makes self-coaching so difficult – separating out what really happened as opposed to your perspective based on prior experience. Over the next number of years, we may see this change. The use of trackers show the route you really took, not the one you thought you took but to be really effective we need data about wind speed and direction from across the course. With all that data, an AI algorithm will tell us what really happened but until then, the beauty is that we can talk endlessly in the club afterwards about what we thought we saw.
*Hastorf, A. H., & Cantril, H. (1954). They saw a game; a case study. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49(1), 129.
Well done to British Sailing Team in China, loads of content and results on Event website.
Snippets
ILCA UK Events
Entries to Masters Nationals
Entries to UK Nationals open tonight
2025 Women’s Regatta at Rutland will open for entries this Friday! (9th May)
Keep an eye on the ILCA Calendar for details as these sessions sell out quickly.
You will see our calendar starting to fill up.
Other news
Ollie Wilson (15) is doing a sponsored sail this weekend in his ilca from Portland to Starcross. Support him here
QM ILCA initiative has gone from zero to international in six months
2025 ILCA7 Masters Spring Qualifier at Parkstone Yacht Club
2025 ILCA6 Masters Spring Qualifier at Parkstone Yacht Club
ILCA Midland Grand Prix at Attenborough Sailing Club
2025 ILCA UK National Open 2 at the WPNSA - ILCA 4 fleet report
2025 ILCA UK National Open 2 at the WPNSA - ILCA 6 fleet report
2025 ILCA UK National Open 2 at the WPNSA - ILCA 7 fleet report
Video of National Open 2
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
National Open 1 video Here it is.
Finally have you seen the tracking? Here are the links - ILCA UK National Open 1 ILCA UK National Open 2 James Foster did a nice debriefing of the racing using the tracking data, see here. ILCA7 briefing. ILCA4 briefing.
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