ILCA President’s Message #4 – May 2026

Dear ILCA sailors,

The 2026 season is well underway, with the strength of our class being demonstrated through strong participation in terms of both sailor numbers and countries competing. The Seniors raced at Sailing Grands Prix in Palma and Hyères, followed the next week by the Europeans in Croatia, where 344 sailors from 53 countries entered.

You will have seen our continued focus on media and promotion of the class at this event through highlights, updates, and behind-the-scenes content:

It was also a great opportunity for me to attend the Senior Europeans for a day in Croatia and meet many of the coaches during a Q&A session.

Q&A meeting with coaches in Kastela, Croatia, during the 2026 ILCA Senior European Championships.

We also saw close to 440 entries at the ILCA 4 Europeans in Murcia.

In June we have the Masters Worlds in Greece with 245 entries from 24 countries. Some of you will have noticed that we now have Legends (aged 75 and over) in the ILCA 7 and Super Legends (aged 85 and over) in the ILCA 6.

Athlete panel and Media

We announced our Athlete Panel in late March and had our first meeting in April after Hyères. The two main topics for discussion were media coverage for the class, especially the Seniors. Sailors want to continue to see more recognition and promotion to build on recent progress.

The class appointed a Communications Manager in January to strengthen communication across all areas. Media arrangements for the 2026 World Championships were already in place, so the main focus at those events is coordinating the locally hired staff. Some of this can be seen in the content from the Under-21 Worlds – Photo gallery, Video playlist and a link to the final report. Over time, we would also like to extend our coverage of events we do not organise, such as the Sailing Grand Slam.

Our social media statistics have risen significantly in recent months, and you can also help by following ILCA on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, as well as tagging us in your posts.

Senior Worlds

The Athlete Panel also discussed the format for our Senior Worlds in Dun Laoghaire. Of course, there has been considerable discussion around Olympic formats, driven by World Sailing, and as a class we want to balance those changes, once finalised, with the legacy of the World Championships. I believe most will agree that the universality of our class remains very important and should be protected – it is what makes us unique among the Olympic classes.

We have made the decision to use Vakaros OCS detection at the Senior Worlds and we will publish a document on how it will be used shortly. Of course using Vakaros will allow us to provide race tracking at the Worlds and we also plan to have live streaming on the final day.

Future events

We have contracted all our World Championships through to the end of 2028 and are now planning for the next cycle. For each event, we are considering the development opportunities for the class in different regions balanced with serving regions with large numbers of sailors.

Finance and Governance Committee – New Treasurer

The World Council is pleased to announce the establishment of a Finance and Governance Sub-committee (FGC) to provide oversight in key areas on behalf of the Council, reporting back with recommendations. See more details here.

List all news items on the website since February message:

Hopefully see you at an event soon!
Mark

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