UK 18ft Skiff invitational at Weston Sailing Club
by Mark Watts 20 Apr 14:21 BST
An exciting start to the 2026 season for the UK 18 Footers with an invitational at Weston Sailing Club. A chance for teams to dust off the winter cobwebs and get some training and tuning time ahead of the first European event in Ammersee, Germany at the end of month.
This season sees a lot of boat and crew changes. Adrian Howe and the English Braids team moving up to a newer boat as ‘English Braids Blue’ (ex Goat Marine).
Luke Goble has joined to helm the ‘Allen’ team, the boat shown at the 2026 Dinghy show.
Newcomers MD Racing led by Mark Watts had such an enjoyable first season in 2025 that they have put together a full campaign and were at Weston for the first time as ‘Selden OneSails’ in their new boat (ex Black Dog).
‘TEAEighteen’ (looking for a sponsor) led by Ed Skeith rounding out the gathering in their impeccably turned out boat.
We have also seen a strong market for secondhand boats with one of the highlights being dinghy legend Toby Lewis recently joining the fleet (sadly out of action at Weston due to a non-skiff related injury!)
Weston greeted teams with full use of the commodores lawn for rigging, boat bimbling and a beautiful sunny weekend.
The weekend took the format of on the water informal tuning and race setup with teams lining up in #1 rig conditions to take on laps of a long windward up and down Southampton Water, providing a great setup to dial in teamwork and rig setup.
Everyone left the water after day, tired but with huge smiles. It was great to see some new faces jumping in to fill in for missing crew members, a theme that was to continue for the weekend as the class widens the pool of sailors that have hands-on time in Skiffs.
A huge thanks to Tom Helme for bringing along his drone to capture some shots of the beautiful conditions.
Saturday evening teams debriefed over beer and BBQ on the lawn whilst topping up their tan from the new One Sails NASA sailcloth (that doubles as a solarium!). This was followed, as temperatures dropped back to remind us it was still April, by a trip to the local curry house for a second dinner and a few beers.
With the majority of teams taking advantage of overnight camping at Weston it was an early start to continue what 18 footer sailors love best, boat bimbling!
The fleet launched into a shifty North Easterly with some big bands coming through that at times were at the spicier end of #1 rig conditions which certainly kept some of those stepping in as crew for the first time on their toes.
Another fabulous day on the water with more two-boat tuning and teamwork practice.
Top take-aways from the weekend:
Tom Cave and his athletic physique is all down to sausages. At every opportunity he can be seen with a frying pan and sausages, sometimes within a few minutes of coming ashore!
18s take all shapes and sizes with an individual crew weight range over the weekend of 70kg to 105kg!
3 crew on the wire going upwing at 12 knots whilst most boats are barely even starting to think about hiking is addictive, especially when the sun is shining!
A huge thanks to Weston Sailing Club for hosting us. We expect to see 3 Skiff teams based at Weston now this year with potentially more to follow making Weston a firm fixture of the UK 18 Foot Skiff scene going forward.
The fleet now move on to the first European event at Ammersee in Germany at the end of April. Following this we have Pagham Sailing Club as a new venue for the class on the 6th/7th June as well as other training gatherings at Calshot/Weston before the highlight of the season, the Europeans on Lake Garda where we expect upwards of 20 teams in attendance. This will be followed by events in Denmark and then the UK in September for the UK leg of the European Circuit.
There has never been a better time to join the class with some good secondhand circuit boats at very approachable price points. Contact the class via social media channels or the class website www.uk18footers.com to learn more.
