ILCA UK Chair Blog #180
Something to shout about for ILCA-UK this week. Two, I say two, World Champions in their respective Masters age categories for Jon Emmett in the ILCA6 and Mark Lyttle in the ILCA7. Congratulations to them both – I believe they’ve both won before (Jon more than once?) but that matters not. It’s a great achievement and worth celebrating. Well done.
That they did it in the heat of Alimos on the outskirts of Athens makes it all the more remarkable and brings me on to the weather which seems to be front of mind today.
Wow, its hot as I sit typing this in London. And tomorrow and Wednesday likely to blow the mercury through the top of the thermometer. But I was struck over the weekend about the peculiarities of our British weather. I was out in Dovercourt Bay off Harwich for 3 days officiating the Ajax23 Nationals – it was hot but not impossibly so although the temperature rose a few degrees as I watched my leeward mark disappearing downwind to play Swallows and Amazons up the Walton Backwaters, leaving its ground tackle somewhere 2.3m below on the seabed. But come in off the North Sea and immediately it felt like someone had turned on the oven. The lawn in front of Royal Harwich’s clubhouse is a good place to find a medicinal cure which came as I find it often does in a pint glass. But all the while we had 10-14 knots up East I was reading of mist rolling in to Weymouth Bay and disrupting the ILCA4s down there. And similarly no Etchells racing on the last day of their championships at Cowes – “not a breath Dad but we played Met roulette the night before and decided to party anyway”. We have a few geographers in my family and back in the day a favourite A Level question was “Britain doesn’t have Climate, only Weather……discuss”.
A few of us have been debating whether our changing climate (or weather – take your pick) means we are getting weaker sea breezes than used to be the case. It feels like that but perhaps we just remember the times in the past when it came in like clockwork with real force behind it (and we forget the days when it was rather more feeble). Or maybe there’s something in it that the overall higher temperatures mean the effect of the air rising over heating land is less effective at pulling in the air off the sea. Answers from real meteorologists are welcomed.
And then there’s local geography. I was reading the post about the fog at Weymouth and thinking that reminds me of a time there when we were out in the bay trying to marshal 150 ILCAs back through the North entrance as the vis disappeared almost entirely. Scary! And I can recall that sort of thing there several times at WPNSA so surely its an established local feature….or maybe it just reflects that Ive spent far more time at that venue than any other over the last 15 years. Again, meteorologists – what’s the truth?
And maybe that’s a reason our sport excites and infuriates us as it does. The last day at the Nationals at Pwllheli last year; those of us with mobile devices on support vessels could see the wind coming on the other side of the peninsula and so could sit tight hoping it would get there before the final race cut-off but for the sailors it was sit tight, stay patient but with no real knowledge of what might or might not appear. There was certainly a view there from a local who would likely know best that with water on both sides of the peninsula and Snowdonia nearby to the East, your “normal” summers day sea breezes were far less likely there than elsewhere.
Wherever you’re sailing your ILCA this week please take care. Our usual risk assessment form has a line item for ranking the cold and wind chill but perhaps we ought to add one for extreme heat. Coming from a family of gingers (or perhaps they come from me) I’m acutely aware of heat stroke and how nasty it can be…..and if you’re in a venue where the sea breeze does indeed comes barrelling in do remember that its really far hotter than you realise and a cold pint of beer on the Clubhouse lawn almost certainly won’t sort it all out when you get ashore! A Hat and Factor 50.
We now have over 100 entries for the Masters National – come and sail against a World Champion – and over 175 entries for the Nationals and they are still coming at a steady trickle before the beat the deadline rush. Hopefully both events will see sunshine (a little less hot than this week please) and sea breezes (like my memory tells me we used to get in the 80s). We don’t ask for much. Aha! The sun always shines on TV.
Neil
Upcoming events:
Masters National Championships Parkstone YC - 3-5 July 2026
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Skills Weeks:
ILCA Skills Week 2026 WPNSA - 15/19 August 2026
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Other Snippets:
Youth World Championships 2026 - Notice of Selection