UKLA Chair Blog #85
As we enter a quieter period for UKLA organised activities, there’s still lots going on and to look forward to. Firstly please check out the calendar for lots of upcoming Grands Prix and Open meetings.
We have a UKLA Masters event at WPNSA on 6/7 July with all three fleets. We welcome sailors with all levels of experience so if you are a regular club racer, this may be a great opportunity for racing at National level in the Olympic venue. With the Masters Europeans at Hayling Island in June 2025, this event would be a good place to start your preparation. UKLA is also recommending doing at least one of our Masters events in 2024 (ideally all three) to improve your chances of getting a place at the Euros if the event is oversubscribed (the other ones are the Masters Nationals at Hayling in Sept and the Inlands in Grafham in October). More information when this opens in next few weeks.
One event open is the Women’s ILCA Regatta at Rutland Sailing Club on 13/14 July. This event is open to all levels of experience including sailors thinking of transitioning to the ILCA. If you are a regular at UKLA Nationals events and training, please come along and support this event.
Finally, Skills Week in both Plas Heli and WPNSA opens tomorrow. Below is the information already sent by email to members. This year we planning to return somewhat to our roots by providing as many places as possible to those coming the class for he first time
What is this SKILLS WEEK you may ask?
Skills week was born in 2021 as a Transition Week. Due to covid and ILCA U21 World Championships being cancelled at WPNSA, we grabbed dates set aside for this event to run a 5 days training event.
It started as training offered to newcomers to the ILCA class and those moving to another ILCA fleet. In 2022 we opened this event to all class members and feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
To keep in line with the original intention of giving new members of the class a boost to start to racing an ILCA, we offered a percentage of available spaces to that group of members, whilst catering for all our members.
Transition sailors are those who have not at the time of application raced in a UKLA regatta (such as Nationals/Qualifiers/Inlands/Youth Winters) or trained in a UKLA event. They can book a space in the general release or apply to attend Skills Week up to the end of June by sending an email to events@ilca.uk setting out their sailing experience - please put Transition Sailor in the email subject so we can easily identify it.
Objective of the week is to support any sailor transitioning into the ICA from another class, support and develop any sailor moving between/new to ILCA rigs and offer an opportunity to train at a world class venue with fantastic coaches to all class members, of any experience, any ability and any age!
This year we offer an opportunity to train at TWO different locations:
Plas Heli 22-26th July
WPNSA (Weymouth & Portland) 26-30th August
You may have already trained or raced at WPNSA, so we encourage you to try another location. Don't forget that one of the qualifiers this Autumn will be held at Plas Heli as well as the Nationals next year so why not get ahead of the game and get to know the location?
Entries to both events open next week (Tuesday, 9th April 2024 at 6pm BST).
We strongly recommend that you get your profile in order ahead of the release times. Tickets are likely to sell in under 1/2 hour.
Practical advice:
Become a member ahead of the release date (Join UKLA, Renew membership)
Complete your profile (address, DOB, emergency and medical information etc)
Add a boat to your profile (You MUST have a boat listed in your profile to enter. If you don't know details of a boat yet, you still need to add something we can amend it later).
Do it all in good time before release time to speed up your booking process.
PLEASE READ INFORMATION ON ENTRY PAGES
If you are a coach and would like to be part of the coaching team across the country, please register your details with us through a short form