Author: kevinphillips

In place of the South Pacific Masters this year ILCA Queensland & RQYS are running an open event the Queensland Winter ILCA Regatta 13-14 July.

Local and pretty good Masters sailor Andrew Stransky has written the invitation below to all ILCA sailors and wannabees to come and enjoy the relatively mild Queensland winter.

Blow away those winter chills, dust off your trusty ILCA dinghy and set your sights on the Queensland Winter ILCA Regatta! Muster your energy and join the age old tradition of competing in the world’s most popular dinghy class.

Racing among friends, the thrilling competition is always tight, regardless of where you are in the flight. Tone up those begging muscles in this 2 day, 5 race series, all for a paltry $50 entry fee, a bargain for the taking.

NOR, information and Entry are at https://www.rqys.com.au/qwir/

This is you chance to avoid the frigid south for at least one weekend.

Qualification for 2024 Olympics Sailing is now finalised with 330 sailors from 66 Olympic nations set to compete in 252 boats spread across the 10 Olympic sailing events in Marseilles starting on 26th July. The nations set to compete and how they qualified are tabulated in a detailed Wiki here. There is a post on the ILCA web site on ILCAs in the Olympics which describes the qualification process and some of the history.

Australia will compete in 9 of the 10 events (missing out in the Men’s Kites). In the ILCAs Zoe Thomson and Matt Wearn have been selected as reported Here.  In the ILCAs from our Oceania Region four nations Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Samoa each have qualified and will send sailors in both ILCA 6 and 7.

It is a great honour to be chosen to represent your country in an Olympics and we wish the sailors and their support teams all the best for their events. Behind their success all these sailors have coach and sport professionals and especially supportive families to sustain, motivate and improve them. We thank them one and all.

One special Oceania qualification we would like to highlight is that of Samoa in the ILCA 6. There Vaimo’oi’a (Vai) Ripley achieved her lifelong ambition of competing in the Olympics. Via won one of two of the IOC’s Universality Places which are a lifeline to athletes from underrepresented Olympics nations.

Vai has been sailing and training at Middle Harbour Amateur Sailing Club in Sydney while competing in all the ILCA local and many international events and fully deserves her coveted place. There is a great post on MHASC web site Here on Vai’s quest.

ILCA have announced that they have acquired royalty and legacy builder rights owned by Spencer family companies Global Sailing (GS) and class builder Performance Sailcraft Australia (PSA). This will give the class greater ownership and control over the design rights and building specifications of ILCAs as well as a greater share of the income from hull & equipment manufacture.

The two acquisitions from the Spencers are the design rights for the class which GS purchased from Bruce Kirby in the early 2000s and the royalty payment rights issued to PSA in 2019 to compensate them as one of the then two legacy builders for the agreement to, and effect of, the introduction of multiple new class builders. See Here for details of these royalty payments.

The ILCA web site post Here has more on this positive move by the class to secure its future.

The 2024 O & A Masters was held at RQYS Manly Queensland 12-15 April.

Great Queensland weather and hospitality was enjoyed by all competitors.

Host district QILCA, RO Louise Davis and RQYS did a great job in organising and running the event in which 7 of the 8 scheduled races were completed.

Rob Sykes provided the following comments on the event.

An eclectic fleet of some 71 boats, including past Olympians, current plus past World Champions and cube holders was met by winds ranging from about 15kn on Friday to a glass out on Monday morning. As some people began to de rig on Monday, the wind came through at about 6kn resulting in us non-believers frantically re rigging to get on the water.

Thanks must go to the RO for the postponement during the first start sequence that allowed us get to the start in time. There were also short postponements on the third race of the middle two days to allow the 6’s to clear the lee gate before the 7’s started their last race of those days. These delays and the communication between the RO and sailors were most welcome.

The regatta management was outstanding, helped by the thoughtful start sequence of 7’s first, followed by 4’s and then the 6’s (who tended to be opponents of rule 30 and enjoyed “nudging” the pin boat at the gun).

I have to be a bit careful pointing the bone at the 6’s, as the winds during the regatta often brought marginal planing or surfing conditions when wave and gust met nicely, resulting in those with the biggest sails pushing the boundary of rule 42 in interesting and creative ways.

I suspect the 4’s were the best behaved of all the fleets. It was really nice to see them on the water and would like to welcome them to future events.

Overall, the racing was very tight with all positions swapped during any race. The regatta winners seemed to find a way to be in the front when it mattered most, while the rest of us gained and lost places with alarming regularity when the winning shift turned from hero to zero in the space of a few minutes.

The pressure on every mark was huge, with a small error on one side or other capable of losing or gaining 5 or 6 places. The finish was similar, with multiple boats finishing within fractions of a boat length of each other. Congratulations must go to the finish boat and volunteer crew who managed to record this mayhem.

Sunday evening brought the regatta dinner after the second day of 3 light weather races. The increasing laughter levels as the evening progressed bear testament to the camaraderie enjoyed by all.

The presentation was preceded by the mandatory sausage sizzle where the category winners and runner ups were presented cubes, ILCA equipment and wine donated by our sponsors, Sail27 and PSA. The important people who make up the bulk of the fleet were also acknowledged with randomly drawn skippers receiving a bottle of wine.

There are more individual perspectives on the event from sailors in the five age divisions and the three classes on the QILCA web site Here.

Full results are Here.

Videos  with thanks to Spikey Mikey (mike@rqtv.com.au) are Here.

This is an update to a 7 Nov 2023 post due to a few changed and added ILCA World Championship venues and dates.

ILCA World Championship places are set and allocated as follows.

• Entry limits are set by ILCA for all World Championships
• Entry places are allocated by ILCA based on the number of financial members in each country
• ILCA offers allocated places to sailors who apply in order of their ranking
• Ranking is carried our by each country
• For Australia ranking is based on places achieved in the preceding Australian Championships Open, Youth or Masters
• Any extra places up to the event entry limit are allocated to countries based on their membership linked entry target
• Like allocated places extra places are offered by ILCA in the order of sailor’s country ranking

There is an explainer with more detail on how the system works Here. It has links to the ILCA web site FAQ’s on entry and place allocation.
The Australian ranking is based on places achieved in the Australian Championship (Open & Youth or Masters) preceding the ranking submission date. This ranking date is set by ILCA and is usually four months before the event start date. The ILCA Ranking Policy is on the Worlds Ranking Page Here.

The venues, dates and ranking events for the 2024 – 2025 Worlds and 2026 World Masters are as follows.

The rotation of Australian Championships is as follows.

ILCA has strengthened its focus on, and resources in, its Technical Team. This now five person team’s responsibility is to ensure the class’ “Off the Shelf, Equal Performance, One Design Sailboat” concept is met in practice.

All ILCA dinghies should look and feel the same, regardless of which of the now ten builders worldwide make them. The same holds true for ILCA-approved spars, foils, and sails. By working with the manufacturers, the Technical Team aims to tighten the tolerances and continuously improve quality and consistency.

The ILCA Build Manual (IBM) is the basis for this one-design philosophy. It specifies the materials, procedures, and specifications that define an ILCA dinghy and the associated parts – foils, spars, and sails. This document has evolved as new manufacturing materials and techniques have become available, making the boat more robust, but the overall performance of the ILCA dinghy has remained constant over its many decades.

There is an ILCA post on the working of the Technical Team Here.

The photo here is of the new jig now used when deck and hull are mated. It provides greater consistency of alignment of these two elements.

Round 2 applications for 2024 ILCA 4 Youth World  (22-30 June) and 2024 U21 World  (1-8 July) Championships at Viana do Castelo, Portugal are open until 31 May.

Applications can be made via the ILCA web site links below.

2024 ILCA 4 Youth Worlds 
2024 ILCA U21 Worlds

James Mitchell posted six wins to take the ILCA 6 GGM’s title

The 2024 ILCA World Masters wound up at Adelaide Sailing Club on Saturday 10th January with the presentation dinner attended by over 300 filling every area of the large club. This event concluded the massive summer of ILCA sailing in Adelaide.

The Masters event will be remembered for strong winds and big swells, some absolutely textbook Adelaide conditions that stuck around for the entirety of the event and gave sailors some tough days, as well as some glamour sailing. The dominant view around the boat park was that the Adelaide Sailing Club and the 100 or so volunteers who made it all happen each day did a great job which was much appreciated by all the sailors.

There were nine World Masters Divisions contested. Some were stitched up convincingly, while a handful of them came right down to the wire, with some tense moments out on the course in the last few races.

Of the nine divisions Australia won five, with New Zealand, Argentina, USA and Great Britain one each.

ILCA 6 Apprentices Franco Riquelme Antonetti BRA
ILCA 6 Masters Simon Small AUS
ILCA 6 GM Andrew Holdsworth GBR
ILCA 6 GGM James Mitchell AUS
ILCA 6 LKegends Bill Symes USA
ILCA 7 Apprentices Luke Deegan NZL
ILCA 7 Masters Brendan Casey AUS
ILCA 7 GM Brett Beyer AUS
ILCA 7 GGM Steve Gunther AUS

The run down on the final places from Sail Down Under’s Harry Fisher is Here.

The full results for the event are Here.