UKLA Chair Blog #68
When is the last time you came ashore from an ILCA race and said you were beaten by another sailor who had a better mast or whose hull design was better suited to the conditions? Never I hope! As I said in Blog #33, one of the great attractions of the ILCA / Laser is that boats can remain pretty competitive for several decades. Certainly for most racing in the UK, your technique, fitness, starting and strategy are much more likely to affect the outcome of your race than the age of your boat (sailing excluded).
I have just spent three days at the ILCA World Council meeting as the second European rep with Jean-Luc Michon (and for my sins I have been elected as Vice-President). One of the main topics was around ensuring that ILCA builders from around the world produce ILCAs conforming to our strict one-design principles. Part of this is the OSEPODS concept, an acronym that does not so easily slip off the tongue - Off-the-Shelf, Equal-Performance, One-Design Sailboat. With nine builders, the class is probably in a unique position of producing strict one design boats that don’t need measurement certificates and yet having a competitive market for builders. You can read more about it here but the ILCA Technical team now has manufacturing data including data captured through scanning that helps ensure integrity. Over recent years, differences have come so minor that even the professional sailors are unlikely to pin-point any performance differences.
There were a couple of other themes during the weekend. There is increased transparency around the running of ILCA and this likely to progress over the coming years. Communication with ILCA sailors around the world is also a focus. (You can sign-up to the ILCA newsletter here). These are areas UKLA members are already familiar with – for example with the leadership of Guy Noble, our race reports (see below) are super!
Micky Beckett attended one of the sessions and provided us with insights to what professional sailors want. Not surprisingly, consistently high-quality racing is important but one challenge is when fleets get to more than 60 boats, the first beat just isn’t long enough to provide enough separation at the first mark – it is chaos or as Micky says if you aren’t in the top 10, it is trench warfare! The professional sailors also want high quality and consistent judging especially around Rule 42. There is a challenge here for the sport at this level as sailors are professional but getting enough quality volunteers for race management and juries is not easy. We should reflect on how lucky we are here in the UK.
I wanted to touch on one other topic and that is winter training. This year is proving difficult to manage and respond to a dynamic situation. We had planned on similar numbers and format as last year, but it is proving difficult to predict numbers. Last year was probably still part of a post-Covid spike and this year the cost of living may be having an impact. Our volunteers are doing their best to provide the best training opportunities we can – please keep an eye on the calendar.
Snippets
UKLA Training
Winter training dates for Dec - UKLA Calendar
On 6th Dec at 7pm we are having our first virtual training of the winter – Starting in Big fleets with Mickey Beckett. Please register here. This winter the sessions are open to members (if you are not a member please join here for 2024). Last year we ran three sessions which are available here to anyone Setting up your ILCA for performance, ILCA technique for upwind/downwind in light and heavy air and Getting your tactics right
UKLA Announcements
UKLA core working hours over winter are Monday, Tuesday & Thursday 1-6pm
UKLA office will be closed over the festive period (24th December 2023 - 4th January 2024)
Race reports