News

Entries are now open for the 2023 Festival.

The LA-LA Rally takes place over the first weekend – a cruise for all including large and small, power and sail, that starts in Conwy on Friday 14th July, through the Swellies and on to Caernarfon on Saturday 15th July, returning to Conwy on Sunday 16th July, with a beach barbeque too.

The Racing in the river and bay takes place over the second weekend, with races for all classes on both Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd July, with a race social night in the Conway Yacht Club on the Saturday.

The Prizegiving Evening will be in the Mulberry at Conwy Marina on the last Sunday.

For the full itinerary of events, see the Calendar page here. The Notice of Race has been published here.

• Entry fees are £25 per event, but if you book now it’s just £20 per event with the early bird discount.
• The LA-LA entry fee includes 4 tickets for a buffet meal at the Royal Welsh Yacht Club on Friday 14th and 4 tickets for the final prizegiving on Sunday 23rd.
• The racing entry fee includes 4 tickets for the race social evening at the Conway Yacht Club on Saturday 22nd and 4 tickets for the final prizegiving on Sunday 23rd.

We are delighted to announce that the Conwy River Festival will be back in 2023, taking place over two weekends in July.

The fun begins with the famous LA-LA Rally to Caernarfon which runs from Friday 14th – Sunday 16th July, and both Power and Sail are welcome.

The racing weekend is the following weekend, Saturday 22nd – Sunday 23rd July, which includes racing in Conwy Bay for larger boats as well as river racing for smaller boats and dayboats.

• La-La Rally: 14th – 16th July 2023
• Racing: 22nd – 23rd July 2023

The sail racing on the second weekend is open to all classes and skill levels. The lightweight speedy racers, standard cruising yachts, heavy Morecambe Bay Prawners, traditional Gaff Rigged yachts as well as a variety of day boats including the local Conway One Designs will all be competing.

Conwy’s annual on-the-water festival of boating is back!

We will be running two days of racing on the 10th and 11th of July and the LA-LA Rally from Friday 16th – Sunday 18th July.

The racing is open to all classes and skill levels. The lightweight speedy racers, standard cruising yachts, heavy Morecambe Bay Prawners, traditional Gaff Rigged yachts as well as a variety of day boats including the gorgeous Conway One Designs will all be competing. The day boats and CODs will be on the river, while the larger boats will be racing out in the bay.

Due to COVID there will not be a full Quay Day this year, but canoe races and rowing races will still be going ahead in the harbour on Saturday 10th. Social distancing restrictions mean we won’t be able to hold the usual briefings and prize givings at the North Wales Cruising Club and Conwy Yacht Club, but may instead hold these outdoors at the marina and potentially stream them online for all to watch.

The LA-LA Rally will be going ahead, but again we cannot organise any large scale indoor events so this year the big get-together will be the beach barbecue.

Note that for both the racing and the LA-LA, we are limiting the number of people on board each boat to 6.

Entry is a much-reduced £10 for either the racing or LA-LA, or £20 for both events.

We have also published the following information for competitors:

• Notice of Race
• Sailing Instructions – Cruiser Classes 1 and 2
• Sailing Instructions – Dayboats and Cruiser Class 3
• Bay Racing Marks
• River Racing Marks and Course Card

Due to updated rules from the Welsh Government last week, and following advice from the RYA and the approach used by the Welsh National Championships in Pwllheli, we are pleased to announce that we will be allowing the following relaxation of the entry rules:

We are now allowing crews to consist of
up to four persons on board
and there are
no restrictions on numbers of households
so each person can be from a different household if you wish.

We realise that while social distancing of 2m may not always be possible on-board, it should always be possible to maintain a minimum separation of 0.5m. Mitigation of the risk of being separated by less than 2m can be provided by reducing the time spent in close proximity, avoiding face to face contact and not shouting.

We are delighted to announce that due to recent relaxations in the regulations on group sporting events, the Conwy River racing weekend is going ahead on Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd August.

The entry fee has been reduced to £10 per boat this year, as we cannot hold any social events.

Unfortunately due to the limitations on group gatherings, the LA-LA Rally is on hold and not likely to happen.

No on-land social events, including Quay Day, will be able to take place, but briefings, protests and prize givings will be held online on Zoom. Briefings and prize givings will be recorded and uploaded for later viewing.

COVID-19 Update

At this stage, but dependent on upcoming Welsh Government decisions on organised group events, we are still planning to go ahead with bay racing on the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd August and the LA-LA Rally on the 29th, 30th and 31st August.

The racing will include all cruising classes as well as the Nobbys, Gaffers and Classics fleet out in Conwy Bay, but there will be no River racing this year.

The LA-LA by its nature involves social gathering but we are considering an ‘anchoring off + beach barbecue’ style of event, which could be a circumnavigation of Anglesey, rather than the now traditional Caernarfon Town trip. Again the final decision will be made after the next round of Government announcements on the 9th July.

Many of the COVID-19 restrictions will still be in place in August, so it is likely we will restrict entrants to one household per boat.

Daily social events will not be taking place, but we are considering a single social distanced outdoor barbecue for the prize giving, location to be announced.