UKLA Chair blog #49

Jul 10

This week we have the Nationals coming up in August, more on Super Sunday and some words of wisdom from Brett Bayer (Olympic coach and 15 times Master Worlds Champion).

The UKLA National Championships are in August in Hayling Island! Several years ago Tony Woods morphed this event into a festival of ILCA sailing to attract club sailors from across the country and this year we continue with that theme. It is superb venue on and off the water and the planned schedule is not too intensive with two races per day allowing for slightly later starts and earlier finishes (wind permitting). There will be daily race clinics each morning and prize draws after racing each day including a fully rigged Ovington ILCA - yes! (thanks to their generous sponsorship, someone will walk away with a band new Ovington ILCA). Thursday night there is a BBQ included in the entry fee with renowned sailor and DJ Mark Covell. We have revamped mentoring scheme and there is also after racing entertainment every evening.

Having successfully introduced the ILCA4s to the Masters Nationals, remember that the ILCA4s at the Nationals are open – there is no age limit. It is great class and venue for borrowing a boat and bringing a friend.

Enter the Nationals

Super Sunday on 25th June has attracted 508 ILCAs on the water from 42 sailing clubs, open meetings and venues despite a particularly windy day especially on the south coast. We now have a target – could we beat this on a Sunday during the winter? It does show the widespread attraction of the class and its inclusive nature. Well done and thanks to everyone who responded. Clubs are listed below.

Finally here is what Brett Bayer said about his winning performance in the ILCA7s at the UK Masters Nationals:

“It fitted in nicely with my coaching in Europe this year and was an opportunity for me to swap from my coaching hat over to my sun faded sailors hat.

I had raced the 2010 Masters Worlds in Hayling and still recall the fantastic downwinds, as well as the physically tough upwinds.

So the regatta brought similar conditions, albeit shiftier than I was expecting. My upwind and downwind speed in these conditions is always pretty good and I try to strip my technique back to a few fundamentals. One of which is, "don't go slow" which goes a long way to producing a good average speed. Sailing upwind through waves is the main thing that kills speed so as soon as the boat feels slow and sticky, I inject some hiking and some ease of sheet to quickly recover. This way, I'm dedicating my hiking only to keeping the boat moving at a constant speed, instead of wasting hiking fitness for heel, which isn't effective.

The downwinds were a great ride. Not always easy to catch every single wave during the lulls, but just another skill set of maintaining a high average speed like upwinds. The wave train direction was generally moving left of the mark so holding Starboard By the Lee proved best. This does leave a little challenge of HOW and WHEN to move right back towards the mark, but as usual, it's these more challenging times in racing that yield the greatest gains and losses within the fleet. I am ever aware of when these challenging moments appear when racing and try to sail these moments better than the competition.

I was most impressed with overall fleet quality and rarely was I first around the top mark. Generally, the most left or right boat won the beat, but not by much. And if you have that focus of sailing the critical moments well, you can keep chipping away through the fleet and find yourself sailing with consistency and low risk. I still finished the regatta with plenty of learnings. It never stops.”

I love the "don't go slow" comment which is so much deeper than first impression. It is one thing keeping up with Brett 95% of the time, but it’s the other 5% when you are slow and he isn’t, whether that is in a gust, lull or strange wave pattern. For the inland sailors in waves, it is the course made good that is critical. On flat water, staying block to block, hiking out and pinching works but it doesn’t in waves.

Super Sunday clubs, open meetings and venues