Airlie Beach With Whitsundays Sailing Club  Mid Photo

The Queensland Government has announced that the Whitsundays and Townsville will host the Sailing Competition for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games, marking a significant accolade for the region known for its vast waterways. World Sailing has endorsed this decision. It is not announced but most likely the ILCAs and other boat events will be in the Whitsundays with kites and boards in Townsville There is a publicity release from Whitsunday Sailing Club on the venue selection Here.

In the mean time World Sailing is undertaking a thorough process of selection of half the 2032 Olympic classes (equipment in their parlance). The ILCA is not up for WS review for 2032 but the foiling classes and mixed 470 are. There is a detailed update on the selection criteria and candidate options so far in the WS (73 page) document Here.  We did say thorough so the two page un-official overview Here may be helpful. WS plans to make the equipment decisions at its AGM in Qingdao, China in November 2026.

ILCA Australia has made a one off exception to the long standing ILCA Australia ILCA World Championships Ranking Policy specifically for the 2028 ILCA World Championships in Takapuna, Auckland.

The long standing policy ranks sailors according to their performance in the pervious ILCA Australian Open & Youth Championships. All sailors who do not compete in the ranking event and apply to enter an ILCA Worlds are ranked in order of their application after all the sailors who did.

The temporary policy change is necessary due to a clash of dates between the 2028 Worlds ranking event the 2027 Australian Open & Youth Championships in Sandringham and the 2027 World Championships in Brazil. Under the current policy, missing the Sandringham event means these elite sailors would lose their ranking, potentially blocking them from entering the 2028 ILCA World Championships in Takapuna, Auckland—just six months before the LA Olympics.

Complete details of the background & rationale for the change and its wording are in the document Here.

2026 World Champion Jonatán Vadnai HUN executing a celebratory back one and a half tuck dive

In a very exciting last finals race on 30 August Jonatán Vadnai won Hungary’s first ever ILCA World Championship medal and it was gold. In the 2026 series sailed at Dún Laoghaire Ireland a new scoring system was used in which race scores are halved for the top 10 who go into a two race with no drop finals series. Going into the second of the two finals races any one of the top ten could have won the event. With just the last finals race to go Jonatán was sitting 8th and Matt Wearn 7th with Michael Beckett GBR in 4th. These three finished in that order on the podium at the end of that last race.

Going into the finals Matt Wearn was 9th and performed a fabulous recovery posting a first and a second in the finals to secure the silver medal. Using the Vakaros System Matt was over the line under the P flag start of the final race so last at the start. He worked his way back to second.  Next best Australians in the series were WA sailors Ethan Mcaullay 21st and Zac Littlewood 23rd. The full results of the finals (top 10) series are Here  and the Qualification Series Here.

There is a great stream of the two finals races by the ILCA on YouTube Here. The races are quite short and with commentary by 2016 silver medalist and native Dubliner Annalise Murphy is well worth watching.

The Women’s ILCA 6 Worlds will be at the same venue 5-12 September. Event web site is Here.

Matt in Action in Dun Photo by ILCA Laoghaire Ireland – Photo by ILCA

The ILCA 7 Men’s Worlds are underway 23-30 September in Dún Laoghaire Ireland. Nine Australians are represented in the 141-boat fleet.

The Qualifying Series concluded on day two with local Finn Lynch holding the overall lead on 9 points, with Michael Beckett GBR the standout performer of the day. With steady performances Matt Wearn is sitting in 10th and Zac Littlewood in 15th. Lots of racing to come yet.

The event web site with links to results is Here.

The ILCA 6 Women’s Wolds will be held at the same venue 5-12 September where the top eight Australian Women will be represented in the 110 boat fleet. The web site for this event is Here.

The Commonwealth Youth Games organisers have included sailing with ILCA 4 (for 14-17 y.o.) and Opti (for 14-15 y.o.) in the 2027 Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in Malta.

Sailing events will be on Mellieha Bay 15 KM NE of Malta’s capital Valletta from  29 October to 4 November 2027.

Australian Sailing say that they expect  to nominate one female and one male for each class and that most likely for the ILCA4s the selection event will be 2027 ILCA Australian Youth Championships  1-8 January 2027 in Sandringham.

The best information to date is in the Australian Sailing post Here

Youth Commonwealth Games 2027 web site is https://www.malta2027.com/

The ILCA Class Rules change ballot has been passed by the necessary two-thirds majority members vote. The new rules some into effect from 10th August 2026. The complete new rules are published Here  and are available in a single pdf Here.

Most of the changes are structural and the rules are now transposed into the World Sailing Standard Class Rules format. If you want to trace the changes in detail then there is a table showing old and new Here.

ILCA 6 Start at OCR Grand Slam Event San Pedro, LA

The Vakaros RaceSense starting system was trailed at the Sailing Grand Slam 19-24 July San Pedro Olympic Classes Regatta in LA. There on the 2028 Olympic courses top ILCA 6 and ILCA 7 sailors had the opportunity to see this technology tested at scale and consider what it could mean for how ILCA racing is started in the future.

The system works by linking every part of the starting sequence together: two fixed units mark either end of the line, each boat carries its own onboard unit, and the Race Officer’s tablet ties it all together with a real-time view of where every boat sits relative to the line.

When the start signal fires and the line goes “open,” the system flags any boats that are over early — individually. Rather than calling a general recall and resetting the whole fleet, only the sailors who jumped the gun are notified. They can dip back, clear the line, and re-join the race while everyone else keeps sailing.

For ILCA, the appeal is straightforward: fewer stoppages, faster racing, and starts that reward clean execution instead of penalizing the whole fleet for a few early boats. It also gives race officials a much stronger evidentiary basis for starting decisions.

San Pedro was an important proving ground, and Vakaros RaceSense will make its debut at an ILCA World Championship at the 2026 ILCA 7 Men’s World Championship in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, running August 23–30, followed by the 2026 ILCA 6 Women’s World Championship at the same venue from September 5–12.

See more on the experience with the system and opinion of top sailors to its use in the post on the ILCA web site Here.

This technology solves some OCS and re-start event management challenges and provides tracking and some interesting race data which will inform and enliven post-race discussion and review. It is however unlikely to see wide adoption below elite level ILCA events until much more affordable (than current $1,000) units are widely available.

ILCA 7 Podium in San Pedro – Colin Grey Photo

The San Pedro OCR wound up on 24 July after a six days of tight racing with 63 of the World’s top Olympic ILCA 7 and 63 ILCA 6 sailors at what will be the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic course at San Pedro. A new Final Series format, featuring two short high-intensity races for each class, produced tightly contested battles on the waters outside the Port of Los Angeles.

Matt Wearn finished at the top of the podium in ILCA 7. Matt had a tussle with second placed Cypriot  Pavlos Kontides throughout while early leader Micky Beckett GBR who had a mid series fade and then a strong finish to lift into third. WA’s Ethan McAullay also made the cut into the top 10 shootout finishing 10th overall. Fellow WA sailor Zac Littlewood was 12th.

In ILCA 6 in the hard-fought medal race sprint, Ireland’s Eve McMahon moved from fourth to third while American Charlotte Rose also climbed a place to take silver while GBR sailor Hannah Snellgrove held onto the overall lead to take gold. There was just 4 points between the three podium placed sailors. First Australian in 20th place was up and coming young Manly YC sailor Evie Saunders.

Full results are on the San Pedro OCR web site Here.