Brittish Confusion!

GBR139438

GBR139438

New Member
Hi all, can someone explain to me how the U.K qualifiers and ladders work? I went on www.laser.org.uk and found no real explanation, as im not a member of the UKLA. Are they like the topper nationwide seires or are they completely different. Im trying to work out which events to attend next year that are fairly local and so far i have only found the welsh laser nationals in march.
cheers clare
 
6 events a year with 4 to count towards your national ranking (also qualification for worlds and europeans). 12:00 start Sat with 3 races and 10:00 start Sun with 2 races and 1 discard. No events in Wales this year coming but you will need to be a UKLA member to enter (they do ask!)
 
cheers, i will become a member of the ukla in time when i start going to events. I will travel abroad (i.e england) but by local i meant not going all the way to to scotland or newcastle for a weekend, as the petrol bill is high enough without that!
 
Who is in the qualifiers next year starting with Stokes Bay? I'm hoping to do as many as I can next year though probably well out of my league. Can anyone recommend any cheap hotels?
 
I'll be doing the qualifiers as normal next year. Can't recommend any cheap hotels as I now live within 25min drive of Stokes so stay at home. Before I lived that close I used to always sleep in the car to save money (still do at a lot of other qualifiers).

There is a caravan park nearby which will probably be cheap as out of season. Have a look on Stokes website, they list a few places on there.
 
Cool, i didn't realise that campsite was for staying at i thought we had to bring our own lol - and i don't have one. What's stokes bay like in terms of chop and likely conditions? i've never actually sailed there i'm hoping to get a practice in on the friday before will the club be open do you reckon?
 
It's in the solent and a wealth of literature has been written on the conditions there.

At a basic level:

Tide.
Tide.
Tide.

And complicated tide at that - at certain times of day the tide will be flowing in opposite directions across the racecourse.

If there is wind there will be big chop.

And - I will be doing all of the q's next season (first time I'll have managed it!)
 
Roughly how long does each race last and what are the courses eg. beat,reach,run, beat, reach or beat, run x2?etc Thanks
 
usually use the old triangle sausage (beat, reach, reach, beat, run) but the trapezoid is also in the sailing instructions.

Races are usually 45mins-1hr long.

Standards start first (usually 50-80 boats)

Radials are usually split into groups (there are too many for one start usually between 80-110), randomly on the first day, then gold/silver on the second.

There are jury boats for rule 42 judgements.

If you decide to go, then while these events are huge fun, they are also VERY tough! The fleet is normally high quality and if it's windy you will be totally destroyed the end!
 
Do you get any stragglers at the back? I think I might be with them for the first few lol. I'm used to my home waters. Fitness must be a key part to it as well then.
 
Yeah you do get stragglers, but the back third of the fleet is still made up of people who win regularly at their home clubs!

If you normally sail on the open sea you'll be fine. It's only if you're an inland sailor then you'll struggle for the first few events (like me!).

Look at it this way - even the people who normally finish in the top 1/4, if they get a crappy start or whatever they can often struggle to get up into the front half again.

Fitness is VERY important if it's hiking conditions - if you can hike harder than the person in front of you you WILL overtake them! :D

I absolutely love these events - even though I get whooped.
 
I will definitely get whooped but i'm in I reckon it will be a good learning curve. I just hope its not howling in at Stoke's Bay as that will be my first qualifier and I could probably do without that first up!
 
Thats what I had for my first ever qualifier - Stokes in lots of breeze back in 2001. Was also my first time sea sailing and learnt the hard way not to tack at the bottom of a wave!!
 
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