UKLA Chair blog #69

I had an impromptu sail at Queen Mary on Saturday. Chris looked behind the forecast of rain and strong winds to spot a gap and encouraged eight of us on the water. What a great sail we had over 2 hours, starting with about 12knots gradually building to over 30 knot gusts – I know it was that windy as I capsized on a broad reach, the first time I have done that in many years. Overall, an exhilarating sail.

Micky Beckett gave a virtual talk on starting last week and I thought it would be worth recapping some of the main points.

He started by saying that some starts are “make or break”, while others are not. I remember the 6 knot sea breeze (or less 😉) race at the Nationals this year with a port-end bias on the starting line with a strategy to go left. This was make or break. I didn’t get a lane off that end, tried and failed to get clear air by making several tacks like many others. The only alternative was to take sterns and go right, not a winning strategy.

According to Micky, deciding when to compete for one of the pole positions comes down to personal preference and risk/reward. I understand this as often when I sail in a Qualifer, I know my chances of winning a good lane at the biased end is quite low so I do a start that allows me to execute my plan knowing than I may lose a little ground to the top sailors who execute at the biased end (e.g. 50% chance of executing your plan at biased end versus 100% chance from the other end but 5 boats will be ahead of you from that end).

He also talked about being near the Committee Boat to get the 5- or 4-minute gun – if you are at the pin end it is much harder to be precise on timing, you could end up being a couple of seconds out. Also when getting a transit, if possible get different markers as it may be hard to spot your only marker. Talking to your fellow sailors is a good way of getting input “where did you think the bias is?”. I would expand this analysis to “why do you think the left paid in that race?”. I also liked his comments on course bias (where the weather mark is offset and not directly upwind) – many think this is about distance to the mark – it’s not – it is about the loss of flexibility around being on the same tack for a long(er) time.

Another general point was if you are close to the line in the last minute you lose all flexibility to hold your position (e.g. you can’t move forward to help close the gap to the windward boat). If you have lost control of your position – get out of it! Once the gun goes, the total effort must be on boat speed – not the time to be fiddling with the kicker or cunningham control line. Finally, that critical first tack – a great start and you are not constrained by other boats but more often than not, you will be. Micky advises to hold off tacking for 3 or 4 boat lengths after another boat has ducked you. Also, as you come off the line, you think about how long you can hold your lane as this allows you to plan ahead for your first tack – if you have a boat on your lew bow, you might think I can hold this for 30 secs so you need to find the best moment to tack in that time frame. Some super pointers from Micky – many thanks once again.

I wanted to touch on ILCA training as we approach year-end. A quick summary on 2023 – UKLA training did 1,723 training days for 599 (non-unique) participants in 2023, a remarkable total. It excludes all club training (UKLA facilitated or not), international event support and Super Grands prix. Of these, 18% were Skills Week which were sold out once again with over 100 participants and 40% (240 participants) were open regional training where we offered training in the south, north and east on the same weekend for eight months of the year. 42% were National training.

That said, the numbers are slightly down mainly based on lower autumn 2023 numbers. Predicting demand for training this winter has been very difficult which has not been the case before (for reasons not fully understood) and we have had to respond flexibly. Our main concern as we head into 2024 is ensuring that we provide training opportunities for all our sailors. To that end, we have published a lot on training opportunities on the calendar to be transparent to all. One area we would like to promote and encourage is open club training – ILCA training that is open to everyone but organised by a club. More details in due course.

Snippets

UKLA Training

Winter training dates for Dec - UKLA Calendar

On 8th Jan at 7pm we are having our second virtual training of the winter – Fitness for ILCA racing. 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.

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