ILCA Lakeland and Borders Grand Prix Series 2021

After six months and thirteen events it was not entirely clear who was going to win overall - the forecast at the final event on Ullswater after a year of light winds promised plenty of wind in contrast to many of the events this year.

However the wind was paying us back in spades... of 30 competitors, only 13 managed to finish even a one lap race. At one stage I looked out over the fleet and well over half the boats were capsized simultaneously. The Race officer took the prudent decision to abandon racing after this one race especially given that it took over an hour to retrieve all the sailors and boats.

As ever in a long series like this, those who attended more events had more opportunity to get good scores while discarding their lesser scores. The top three placed sailors all completed about 10 events which is a fantastic signal of their commitment. Only two events had less than 10 competitors which seems to be better than our immediately adjoining regional series. The inclusion of a Super Grand Prix at St Mary's Loch achieved the highest turnout of just under 50 with a great day of coaching, partly shorebound due to a lack of wind, followed by competitive sailing in light winds on the Sunday.

14 sailors managed to complete the series qualifying minimum of 4 events but over half of them only completed 4 events and the series coordinator credited 3 of them with an event completion for launching and then retiring in the final event. The top 3 sailors were only separated by 3 points, and then the 2nd group only separated by 3 points. Interestingly only one sailor completed a series in a 4.7/ILCA4 and only 5 in Radials/ILCA6. Some sailed different rigs in different events so couldn't get a rig series place.

I thank all the competitors and possibly more importantly all the hosting clubs who have done so much to make the series successful especially in the early stages of the year when Covid restrictions made life difficult especially over the border in Scotland which released its restrictions significantly later. We look forward to 2022 when our combination of tidal and freshwater venues should make for a varied series again.

Overall Results: