UKLA Chair blog #24
Looking to kick-off my 2023 sailing at Queen Mary, I checked the forecast Sunday morning racing, and it looked cold and windy. But my perseverance, and those of the 20 other ILCAs, were rewarded with two exhilarating races in 15 to 20 knots where I could still feel my hands and feet throughout! I am sure many of you are looking at 2023 too, so I wanted to mention UKLA schedule.
After the RYA Dinghy Show in late February, we have three qualifiers in March, one at Stokes Bay and the other two at WPNA. These are of course really high quality open meetings and most are attending for the racing, rather than qualifying for anything. In fact, readers of this blog will know than qualification for internationals events is hardly ever needed anyway. As well as the Masters events mentioned last week, we have our National Championship back in Hayling Island in August and four more open meetings in the autumn – one in Paignton, two at WPNSA and one at Draycote.
We did say that we wanted more events away from the South coast but this has proved difficult so far. We have approached many venues, and few are able to take 200 boats and some of those that can have no availability. If you know a club that can take us in 2024 or 2025 please let us know. We of course already know the possible venues, so we are really looking for input if you know a club that could actually host us.
You will also notice that the Stokes Bay qualifier doesn’t include ILCA4s. This partly because Stokes Bay could not host all of us and partly because close to 50 ILCA4s are involved in RYA RTG training that weekend. We have been trying to schedule a Youth event during the winter but have not been able to find an available weekend for the ILCA4s given the amount of training they have (UKLA open / National and RYA RTG) - a lesson learnt for next winter. However we are in the final stages of getting a Youth event for late June (details soon hopefully). I understand also that the ILCA4s will be included in three venues for the RYA Regional Junior Championships in June and the RYA Eric Twiname event (usually in early May and open to RTG sailors).
Over the next month or two, you will also see many Grands Prix appear in the calendar.
All the best
Mark
Check our UKLA website and calendar of events