UKLA Chair Blog # 91

May 20

UKLA Noble Marine Open & National Championships 2024 – WPNSA and other events

The Nationals takes place from 12th to 17th August and is based on the model promoted by Tony Woods as a “festival of ILCA sailing”. We aim to provide high-quality racing for sailors with a wide range of experience combined with onshore activities and socials. WPNSA was of course home to the 2012 Olympic sailing events, and we will be aiming to sail as much as possible in Weymouth Bay (weather dependent) with two racecourses. And with six days of racing, we schedule two races a day rather than three, allowing slightly later starts and more flexibility around the weather. As usual we will have three fleets with a mixture of club sailors all the way through to British Saling Team sailors, youths and masters. ILCA4 will be around 40% young women and is open to masters and is particularly attractive to sailors transitioning from other junior classes or just coming to sail as a “one-off”.

Ashore there will be daily talks from top ILCA sailors and a daily prize draw (that includes a brand new Ovington on one day – details nearer to the time). Included are two meals – a “pizza night” and a BBQ and DJ on the penultimate night with social events on each of the other evenings. We value regatta mentoring and will match up all sailors that sign up with an experienced sailor in their fleet, be it for their first Nationals, first sea event, first regatta in a new rig or for some top tips to improve.

I would like to say something about the entry fee which we have to raise this year. We try very hard to keep the entry fee as low as possible but the cost of the running the event is driven primarily by the host venues’ charges and like many things, they have all seen higher costs. We continue to have great support from our sponsors but even where most of the work is done by volunteers, we still run the event at a significant loss.

This year we will build on the sponsor hub we had at Hayling Island. Tideway Wealth have come in as a significant sponsor and will host our 'welcome day' and free pizza night. They say:

Tideway offers tailored wealth management and financial planning to individuals seeking to invest their savings wisely and grow their wealth. James Baxter, an avid racing sailor, founded Tideway in 2009 and since than Tideway has focussed ensuring that all of their clients receive the same passionate attention to retaining and growing their capital so they can live independently and pass wealth to their next generation. With an ethos of an active lifestyle and enjoying retirement, Tideway is honoured to sponsor the UKLA Open National Championships 2024.

Alongside Tideway Wealth, Rooster, Ovington, Sailingfast, Noble Marine and Southeast Sailboats return to the hub this year and continue as class sponsors. Each of the sponsor will host one of the days providing prizes and evening entertainment: Day1 - Tideway Wealth, Day 2 - Sailingfast, Day 3 - Rooster, Day 4 - Southeast Sailboats / Noble Marine, Day 5 - Ovington Boats, Day 6 Prize Giving.

Our sponsors provide significant cash and product benefit to the class in exchange for the promotion of their products and services. The more support you can give them, the better for the class.

I hope to see many of you there.

You can enter the UKLA Noble Marine Open & National Championships 2024 – WPNSA below.

enter here

The next UKLA event is the Masters weekend at WPNSA on 6th/7th July. Why not come and start your program for the Masters Europeans in Hayling Island next June? For those of you considering a return to competitive ILCA sailing after some years at this Masters event, remember you are not expected to perform at the same level as you did as a youth!

After that we also have the Women ILCA Regatta - Rutland Sailing Club on 13th/14th July. If you want to ask more about this, Fiona’s contact details are on the link. She would love to hear from those thinking of transitioning from junior classes and masters and anyone else.

Over the next 6 weeks, I count almost 30 open meetings and Grands Prix all over the country. See our calendar.

As some of you will have seen, the RYA Regional Junior championships have been cancelled. I am aware for two replacement regattas on 22nd/23rd June for ILCA4s at WPNSA and Derwent. In addition, for those youths looking for regional racing throughout the season, check out these (none of these are UKLA events so for details please see the organisers):