UKLA Chair blog #50

Written By Mark Lyttle

Like many of you, I followed the World Sailing Paris Test event in Marseille where we had Micky and Hannah competing. These two world class sailors performed brilliantly with both making the Medal Race (top ten) and Micky taking the Silver medal after a close fought battle for Gold.

Apart from their performances, what struck me was the number of countries competing in the two ILCA events with 42 and 38 countries participating. While I acknowledge the attractiveness of skiff sailing and foiling, isn’t it wonderful that the ILCA remains the “universal” class, so accessible to sailors from across the world? We have something other classes just can’t offer.

Paris 2024 will see twice as many countries represented in the ILCAs as any other dinghy with 43 in both the men’s and women’s events but I would love to see these numbers increase further (there were 56 in the ILCA class in Atlanta). Why do I think it is important? There are thousands of sailors in the UK alone that can relate to ILCA sailing in the Olympics. They sail their ILCAs in clubs around the country, participating in club racing and traveling to open meetings. They know what it is like sailing an ILCA on a broad reach in 20 knots or how fit you need to be to sail upwind. Many of them get a chance to line up along side British Sailing Team sailors at UKLA events, inspiring young and old. It is that link that it is created between the Olympics and grassroot sailing that is not replicated anywhere else in the UK.

The second factor is accessibility of the ILCA. While I know a new ILCA capable of competing internationally isn’t cheap, you can pick-up second-hand ILCAs at very reasonable prices and still compete successfully at club level (even in a ILCA/Laser that is over 20 years old). I know ILCAs are not high-performance dinghies (unlike us sailors) and a 50 year old design but they are one-design and still provide the competitive racing environment where the sailor wins, not the boat.

Preparations continue for the UKLA National Championships are in August in Hayling Island – see the dedicated news post. Reduced entry fee remains in place until Wednesday so please Enter the Nationals:

We are also delighted to have a new sponsor in PropVerse run by active ILCA sailor David Surkov. This means Pizza night on Sunday will now be included free of charge in your entry along with the BBQ and disco with DJ Mark Covell.

Ben Elvin, ILCA6 Masters National Champion, offers some insights on the event below:

After what felt like months of Northerlies and North Easterlies some more normal UK Sailing conditions (ok, the upper end of normal!) finally broke through, just in time for a scheduled 3 days of racing at Hayling Island.  Hayling Bay is hard work in everything other than benign conditions, so I will admit I was feeling a little apprehensive about how it was going to feel after months of flat water and offshore wind.

Although it was disappointing that we weren’t able to sail on the Friday due to the conditions, there was a small part of me that was relieved.  Only 2 days of this to survive then, not 3! Although at the front of the fleet it might look like the fastest boats are able to cruise through the biggest conditions, the reality is this:  It never gets easier, you just go faster (credit: Greg LeMond).  True in all sports I think.

Whether at the front, middle or back, it looked like everyone had a great time.  Those at the back, elated to have survived some big days, and those at the front enjoying the tight competition and reawakening the hiking legs.

I’ve been reflecting on what matters most in the conditions we had and based on what happened over the six races the answer isn’t obvious but I am pretty sure of it.  There was a clear speed difference between the top 3 and the next tier in the fleet.  Maura Dewey, Ross Harvey and myself were all pretty evenly matched for upwind speed, with Ross being slightly quicker with his super smooth wave technique, and downwind I had the edge and was able to either extend (good first beat) or close up the gap (bad first beat) on the other two.  That said, in race 6 when Ross and I were in a “beat the other boat to take the title situation” and we were less focused on taking the right route up the racecourse,  Steve Cockerill called us out on our shenanigans and was able to overcome the speed difference by taking a better route to the mark on both beats.

Nevertheless, for consistent results in big fleets, I believe more speed generally beats better decision making.  Your boatspeed is guaranteed and it’s something that you can fully control.  Even the best decision makers get it wrong a large percentage of the time (that’s just sailing!) and there’s always a couple of other people there with you when you nail it just right. When the wind is up in a big fleet you’ll normally place roughly where you rank in speed unless you make some really big errors.  Without speed it’s also very hard to work on and improve your decision making.  Did that boat cross ahead because you sailed the wrong shift, or are they just quicker than you?  It’s impossible to unpick unless you’ve got consistent speed.  Until I’d spent a long time working on my speed, I found it quite difficult to make sense of what was happening on the racecourse.

The great thing about training speed is that it all you have to do to improve it is get out there and sail your boat!  You can’t think your way to better speed, you have to learn it by doing, by feeling how your boat behaves and constantly testing it: “could I have popped over that wave a bit better”, or “what happens if I do it like this rather than like that”.  As long as your basic technique is roughly right, it’s just a matter of time.  If you enjoy sailing your boat, then sail it more and the speed will come!

Mark Lyttle
Previous

UKLA Chair blog #51
Next

UKLA Chair blog #49