ILCA World Championships

Despite high COVID cases and constraints the 2021 ILCA World Championships have so far been able to run and attract near capacity competitors. The ILCA6 Youth Worlds at Arco on Lake Garda, Italy attracted 370 entries from 40 countries with the boys split into four fleets. The ILCA4 Youth Worlds event in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland saw 243 entries and the Under 21 Worlds in Gdynia, Poland had 200 entries from 39 countries.

ILCA has done a great job under difficult conditions to stage these events. They have had to relocate some events due to COVID restrictions and difficulties in transporting charter boats due to current shipping logistics chaos.

Unfortunately due to Australia’s foreign travel ban no Australian sailors have been able to compete in the World Youth events however Australian sailing are managing to send some Australian Sailing Squad members to under 21 Worlds (Gdynia, August) and ILCA6 Worlds (Oman, December) and ILCA7 Worlds (Barcelona, November).

Travel bans look likely to persist for this year and in any event travel costs are through the roof, so the prospect of Australian sailors competing in the World Masters (Barcelona, November) are bleak. There are however 260 entries for the Masters event which in better times might have been near the 400 entry limit.

ILCA have announced timing and venues for 2022 World Championships (except for ILCA6 Youth Worlds). Listing of the events is on the ILCA’s web site Here. Australian sailors will hopefully be free to travel to these 2022 events.