Dear ILCA sailors,
Following my election as President a couple of weeks ago, I promised an update from our annual meeting. I would like to start by again thanking Tracy Usher for his commitment and passion to ILCA sailing over many years, particularly his work as President in guiding the class through the transition from Laser to ILCA. I am delighted to say that the World Council has made the very well-deserved induction of Tracy to the ILCA Hall of Fame in recognition of his dedication and contribution to the class over these many years.
The ILCA Class is in a strong position
We have two Olympic events in ILCA 7 and ILCA 6, which continue to attract the best sailors in the world to what we know is the most competitive class. The ILCA is still considered a “rite of passage” for those aspiring to the top of the sport.
Our Under-21 and Youth World championships continue to have super numbers with close to 40 countries, and a recent ILCA 4 Worlds that had 427 sailors from 51 countries. The 2025 Masters Worlds in Italy had 445 sailors from 38 countries, evidence of the enduring appeal of our class across all age groups. But it is not just in big championships, the class is thriving at the local level in clubs around the world. This is evidenced by our worldwide membership remaining stable at over 13,000 as our builders continue to produce more new boats each year than any other World Sailing class except the Optimist. We have six regions, and of course, we know Europe has been a powerhouse in recent years, but the Asian region is growing dramatically, with the Americas and Oceania also thriving. In Africa we are also seeing “green shoots” of development.
Strict One-design remains paramount
Why is this? One reason quoted by many of you is the strict one-design nature of our class. To race competitively in an ILCA requires skill and experience, as everyone has the same equipment. This is the essence of our class. With the transition from Laser to ILCA, we have ten builders, as well as multiple suppliers of sails, spars and foils. We are, of course, not a “measurement class,” so if you have an ILCA or Laser with a World Sailing plaque, it is class legal and the same applies to our branded, approved parts. To support this, we have a sophisticated audit system of builders and suppliers, where building variances are categorised by priority and reported. All ILCA boats, as well as sails, spars, and foils, are now recorded in a central registry, accessible with a QR code, all managed by a custom app and database. This puts us in a unique position in the sport, as a “class controlled manufactured one-design” with many builders.
We are working closely with World Sailing on all of this. We have in progress some improvements in our Class Rules and ILCA Build Manual, nothing fundamental, but changes that will help tighten manufacturing tolerances and align our documentation to World Sailing formats. We hope to have some more “Post Production Monitoring” at select events this year, working with World Sailing – this involves checking a sample of ILCAs in the field to ensure compliance with build standards. The aim of all of this is to continue the trend, started with the move from Laser to ILCA, to have significantly tighter tolerances on everything from hulls to sails (the OSEPODS strategy) – focussed on strict one-design. We want all builders to build ILCAs in the same way.
Two other projects are ILCA 4 and ILCA 6 sail development, driven by the need to reduce our dependency on a particular sail cloth, while producing sails that will last longer. The new ILCA 4 sail is in late-stage development, while ILCA 6 is further away. For the avoidance of doubt, the ILCA 6 sail will not be changed in this Olympic cycle.
World Championships and starting technology
We will continue to run seven World Championships each year with the aim of moving these around the world to continue to strengthen our position as a global class. Of course, a World Championship in Europe attracts a higher entry, but as a global class we must also go to other continents. In the last two years we have had Worlds in Europe, North and South America, Australia (Oceania) and Asia, with the Under-21s in Africa just over two years ago.
As many of you will know, there has been a big debate in World Sailing about improved media coverage at the Olympics and the racing format to be used. For our Senior World Championships in 2026, we feel it is important to support our sailors in the transition to the proposed new format while balancing some of the strengths of our class. Accordingly, we will continue to run a 6-day racing format with a qualifying and final series but with slightly shorter races (of around 50 minutes). We also intend to run a medal series for the top 10, depending on the outcome of the current “test” period being run by World Sailing.
We also intend to have OCS detection technology for the 2026 Senior Worlds, but further evaluation is still needed for this to happen. There are clearly benefits for sailors in all fleets in moving towards this, but it must be done in a way that does not impede grassroots participation.
The importance of promotion
We are conscious of the need to continue to promote the benefits of our class at all levels and we are aware that this is particularly critical for our two Olympic events.
We will be working hard on this next year, to deliver enhanced communications with a fully funded marketing and communications role.
We want to be more transparent and communicate more with the ILCA community. I hope to do a message like this on a regular basis and to ensure we have representation from the World Council at each of our World Championships.
Athlete panel
At our annual meeting, we agreed in principle to set-up an athlete forum / panel and we will be working on this in the coming months. We believe it is important to hear the views of our “pros” in particular, as they are committing so much to their campaigns.
World Council renewal
Finally, I believe it is important that we continue to improve the governance of our class following the changes in our constitution in 2022. Our World Council is almost entirely made up of volunteers, including each of our Regional Chairs and the President and I would like to thank them, together with all the staff, for their commitment and passion to the class.
We also need to continue to renew. So, I am delighted that Aileen Loo has taken on the role of Vice-President (in addition to her other roles). Also, Virginia Kravarioti will join the World Council as the second European Representative – she is an accomplished sailor and Olympic medallist and will bring a different perspective. In addition, our long-standing treasurer Nick Page will stand down at the end of next year (his contribution has been outstanding) and to ensure we get the best possible replacement for this volunteer role, we will recruit openly.
As I said in my opening message as President, I would like to lead a World Council that listens to our community, is open and responsive and works together to promote our class and the sport as a whole. I look forward to meeting you and thank you for your ongoing support of our class.
All the best,
Mark