Frequently Asked Questions - ILCA Sailors


GENERAL QUESTIONS

There are several steps required in order to compete at an ILCA World Championship. In broad outline the process includes the following actions:

  1. Submit an application, confirm your email address, and pay the application fee.
  2. Each application must be approved and ranked by your country's ILCA Class representative.
  3. Entry offers are made to sailors in the order of their rank in a country.
  4. If you receive an entry offer, you will have a fixed amount of time to accept or refuse the offer.
  5. Once you have paid the entry fee, you will be Entered to compete at the championship.

Sailors are not usually direct members of the ILCA. In order to compete at an ILCA World Championship, the sailor must be a paid member of a district's ILCA Class association. A district is often a country (e.g. Italy, Japan, Zimbabwe, Brazil, etc.), but in some cases, a district is part of a country (e.g. Western Australia is a district in the country of Australia). In the case of North America, many districts form a region and you would be a member of ILCA-NA. In addition to being a paid member of your ILCA Class Association, each sailor must also be a member of their ISAF National Sailing Authority.

The ILCA does not prescribe specific qualifications for competing in a World Championship. The only ILCA requirements are that each sailor must be a paid member of a recognized ILCA Class Association and be a "competent sailor capable of racing a ILCA in open water in all conditions including strong winds." Whether a sailor meets these requirements is determined by the country representative. Your country may have additional requirements that must be met in order for a sailor to be approved (such as competition in certain local or regional events), but ILCA leaves that to the discretion of each country.

Please see the Q&A: "How do I make changes to my application information (immediately following)?"

If you need to change any information for your application, first go to your applicant status page. A link to this page is included in emails sent to you through the on-line entry process.

On your applicant status page, click on the button marked "Edit your Application" and your application form will be presented with the most recent information you have submitted.

Make changes to the information as necessary. NOTE: there are some types of information you will not be able to update (such as your name, ISAF ID, birthdate, email address, etc.). These fields are all presented in grey on the form. If you need to make a change to any of these items, you must contact the ILCA office.

Once you have made any desired changes, click on the agreement to the Terms and Conditions checkbox and then click on the “Update Application” button.

Contact the ILCA office as soon as possible with all relevant information (your name, ISAF ID, the event(s) to which you have applied, your old and new email addresses). The email address is our primary means of communicating with all applicants to a regatta and it is essential that notices from ILCA are able to reach you.

Send an email request to ILCA, providing information about yourself (name, ISAF ID), the event you are planning to attend, and any specific wording that may be needed for you to obtain your Visa and we can send you an official invitation. In some cases the invitation will be issued by the host.

Masters divisions are based on increments beginning with age 30:

  1. Apprentice (30-44)
  2. Master (45-54)
  3. Grand Master (55-64)
  4. Great Grand Master (65-74).
  5. Legend (75+).
You will automatically be assigned to a division based on your age at the beginning of the Championship.


APPLICATION PROCESS

A list of upcoming ILCA events is available on-line at the following address:
    https://sailing.laserinternational.org/site/event-list

When an event has information publicly available, you will be able to click on the name of the event, or the link that reads "Click Here for Detailed Event Information" or the regatta logo (if one exists). Any of those links will take you to the Event Overview.

To submit an application, click on the label marked "Application Form" in the navigation menu at the top of the page. After that you will need to select a division in which to apply. In some cases, there is only one division. In other cases there may be more than one division (for instance if male and female will compete separately at the same championship, there will be two divisions).

NOTE: There are periods when the application form will not be available, such as prior to the date on which applications open, or after the application closing date. The application form will be available again during the late application period, and then close near the start of the regatta.

Regatta documents are accessible through each individual ILCA event. A list of upcoming ILCA events is available on-line at the following address:
    https://sailing.laserinternational.org/site/event-list
When an event has information publicly available, you will be able to click on the name of the event, or the link that reads "Click Here for Detailed Event Information" or the regatta logo (if one exists). Any of those links will take you to the Event Overview. To access the regatta documents, click on the label marked "Documents" in the navigation menu at the top of the page.

You should be able to look up your ISAF id number through the ISAF website:
    http://www.sailing.org/sailors/isafsailor/index.php

Enter your family name in the Search for a Sailor box (about half way down the right hand side of the page) and click on the button marked "Search". This should return a list of sailors with that family name. Hopefully you will be able to find your name on that list. If you cannot find your name, you may need to create an ISAF ID.

There are several reasons you may encounter difficulty with your ISAF id number.

First of all, the name and ISAF id number must match what is entered in the ISAF records. To verify your correct ISAF information, search your records via the ISAF website:
    http://www.sailing.org/sailors/isafsailor/index.php

Enter your family name or ISAF id in the "Search for a Sailor" box (about half way down the right hand side of the page) and click on the button marked Search to find your records.

Please pay attention if your name has special accent characters. Again, you will need to enter your name exactly as it appears in the ISAF records.

Another difficulty you may encounter is if the ISAF number you are trying to enter is already associated with an existing paid application. Please verify whether you have already completed your application. If it turns out someone else has used your ISAF id number to apply for the championship, please contact the ILCA immediately: entry@laserinternational.org

Your qualifying country is the based on the ILCA Class Association of which you are a member. Select the country to which you paid your ILCA Class dues.

If your country (district) does not appear on the list of qualifying countries, it means they did not pay their association dues and sailors from that country can not enter any ILCA World Championships. You should contact your country representative as soon as possible about paying their association dues to ILCA. If you are having difficulty reaching your country representative, please contact the ILCA.

In most cases, the confirmation email should arrive in a few minutes or less. However, we have occasionally heard about emails that arrived after several hours. Be patient and check your email again the following day.

However, sometimes there are problems that prevent the email from arriving at your inbox. Try the following:

  • Check your spam folder.
  • Try submitting another application.
  • If you still don't receive a confirmation email, it may be that your email server is blocking the incoming email. Often it helps to try submitting an application using a different email address.
  • If you have tried the above options and still have not received your email, please contact the ILCA for help diagnosing the problem.

If you are not yet Entered in the regatta, you can simply cancel your application to the "wrong" regatta to receive a refund and submit a new application to the correct Championship. Cancelation instructions are provided in the email sent to you upon completion of your application.

If you have already paid the Entry fee, you will need to contact the ILCA office.

Yes. After the application closing date there is a period when no applications will be accepted and country representatives will be approving and ranking applicants. After the first round of entry offers is made, the entry system will begin accepting late applications. As the start of the regatta approaches, there will be a point after which the application form will no longer be available.

If your country representative refuses your application, you will receive an email notice that will include a stated reason for the refusal. If the reason is something that can be addressed (e.g. the sailor has not paid their dues), then you should immediately work with your country representative to remedy the situation. If you are able to arrive at a satisfactory solution to the problem, your application can be reactivated by your country representative. If you are not able to find a solution before the regatta, you will receive a refund of your application fee, less a small processing charge (stated in the Notice of Race).

The age policy for ILCA World Championship competition is based on the age a sailor will become in the year of the Championship, not the age of the sailor at the beginning of a regatta. This will guarantee that a sailor will be able to compete in a championship (or not) in any given year regardless of when the regatta happens to be scheduled.

You may cancel your application any time before you have received an entry offer. If you cancel your application you will receive a refund of the application fee less a small processing charge (specified in the Notice of Race).

If you have already received an entry offer, you may "refuse" the offer before it expires; you will then receive a refund of the application fee less a small processing charge (specified in the Notice of Race).


ENTRY PROCESS

ILCA does not impose a ranking process. Each country may use its own process for deciding how to rank sailors for each ILCA World Championship. This can vary for each event. If you have questions about the ranking process, you should contact the representative for your country.

ILCA uses the rankings when making entry offers. Whenever a place to compete is available for a country, an entry offer will be made to the highest ranked sailor from that country who is waiting for an offer.

Each World Championship has a maximum entry limit for the number of sailors who may compete at the event. Those places are divided up among the countries of the ILCA based on membership numbers. The greater the number of members a country has, the more allocated places they will receive.

Some countries have more sailors who would like to compete than their number of allocated places available while other countries have fewer sailors. Allocated places that are not used by a country are distributed to sailors in other countries as extra places.

Entry offers are exactly the same, whether it is for an allocated place or an extra place, and all sailors who pay their entry fee are "Entered" to compete on equal terms.

For a more detailed description of Allocations, see the document ILCA Initial Entry Allocations.

ILCA will publish the date that initial entry offers will be made for each regatta. However, there is no guarantee when any particular sailor will receive an entry offer or even if they will receive one. It depends on how many places are available for the regatta, how many places a country has, how many sailors have submitted applications, and where you are ranked on your country's ranking list.

If you receive an entry offer, you will have a specific period of time in which to take action. This is usually two weeks, but it may be of shorter duration, especially if your offer is made close to the entry deadline. You will either need to accept (by paying the entry fee) or refuse the offer before your deadline. You will not be considered Entered in the regatta until you have paid the entry fee.

If you receive an entry offer and decide not to accept, you should Refuse the offer, using the link provided in your entry offer email.

If you take no action, your offer will expire, you will forfeit the application fee and your application will become inactive. If there is some reason you were not able to respond before the offer expiration and you still wish to try and enter the regatta, please contact the ILCA office. Under some circumstances your application may be reactivated, and it may be possible to receive another offer.

At this time, there is no option to pre-pay or automatically accept an offer. You can arrange to have someone accept your offer and pay the entry fee, but you will need to ensure that person access to the email account used when submitting your application.

Regardless of when you submit an application, the entry fee you must pay depends solely on when you submit your entry fee payment and become entered. If you are able and pay by the end of the Entry Closing Date, you will pay the entry fee. If for any reason you are submitting payment after the Entry Closing Date, you must pay the late entry fee to become entered in the regatta. The entry fee and late entry fee amounts as well as the Entry Closing Date are all specified in the NOR.

Regardless of when you receive an entry offer, if you pay the entry fee AFTER the entry deadline, you must pay the late entry fee (which is specified in the NOR).

The Entry Closing Date is always specified in the Notice of Race and is usually published on the website under the Event Overview.

Once you have accepted an Entry Offer by paying the entry fee, you should receive a confirmation email, and your name will appear on the official Entry List published on the ILCA website for that Championship regatta. If you believe you have entered but do not see your name on the official Entry List, please contact the ILCA office.

Once an Entry has been paid and completed, ILCA will ONLY cancel an Entry upon the request or agreement of the Entered sailor.

In order to cancel an Entry, a request must be made to the ILCA office from the email address associated with the Entry.

Entry offers are non-transferrable. If a sailor cancels their entry, an entry offer will be given to the sailor with the highest priority in the ILCA entry system.


CHARTER QUESTIONS

Consult the Notice of Race for your ILCA World Championship regatta for specific information about charter boats.

If the Championship is a supplied boat, mandatory charter regatta you will not need to request a charter as all sailors entering the regatta will be allocated a charter boat.

If competing with a charter boat is optional and ILCA is facilitating charter boat reservations, you will indicate your wish to have a charter boat when submitting an application.

If ILCA is not facilitating charter boat reservations, we will try to identify and provide contact information for local charter companies through which sailors can arrange individual charters.

If charter boats are optional for a regatta and there are a limited number of boats available, charter boats may be allocated based on the ILCA allocation process or they may be offered to sailors on a first come, first served basis. For allocated charters, sailors will receive charter boat offers in order of their rank within a country.

For a more detailed description of Charter allocations and reallocations, see the document ILCA Charters.

You can request a charter boat by updating your application form. Please see the Q&A: "How do I make changes to my application information?"

You can also request a charter boat through your applicant status page. If ILCA is organizing charter boats for the regatta, there will be a button on your applicant status page marked "Click Here to Request Charter".

Go to your Applicant status page (a link to your Applicant Status Page is included in your offer email). If you have an unexpired charter offer, there will be a button marked "Click Here to Refuse Charter Offer". Select that option and that charter boat will be made available to another sailor.

The Charter Terms and Conditions document, available through the Documents link for each ILCA World Championship event, will specify what is included with a Charter and what items the sailor is required to bring.

If Charter boats are optional for the regatta, you may use any class legal ILCA dinghy. There is an inspection process that all sailors must go through to ensure they are using class legal equipment, properly configured. It is the sailor's responsibility to ensure they equipment they will be using is class legal.

For detailed information about the ILCA dinghy, please see the Measurement Manual. Another valuable resource is the list of Illegal Equipment.

If Charter boats are required for the regatta, you must use the supplied charter boat arranged by ILCA.


PAYMENT QUESTIONS

You can use the link provided in emails sent to you to access your Applicant Status Page. From there you will be able to review your status and access a receipt which will show all your payments processed by ILCA for that event.

Go to your Applicant Status Page (a link to this web page is provided in emails sent to you after your application form has been submitted).

At the bottom of your status page, click on the button labelled "View Payment Receipt".

f you cancel after the Entry Closing Date, no entry fee refund is possible.

If you cancel prior to the Entry Closing Date, you will receive a refund of the entry fee less bank and processing charges. The charges and refund amounts will be specified in the Notice of Race.