UKLA Open & National Championships 2023 - New sponsor, David Surkov

New UKLA sponsor, David Surkov, runs propverse.net © Georgie Altham / www.facebook.com/galthamphotography

UKLA ILCA National Championships - UKLA would like to welcome PropVerse.net and David Surkov as a new sponsor - He joins a very loyal and dedicated group. 2023 is proving to be yet another great season for the ILCA in the UK. Entries to this years National Championships at Hayling Island Sailing Club is now up to 243.

With this size event UKLA need help. Not just from the army of volunteers but from our great sponsors. Ovington Boats, Sailingfast, Rooster, Noble Marine, Harken Southeast Sailboats and Fernhurst Books are all contributing enormously to making this event a success. This year we have a new sponsor PropVerse.net.

ProVerse is owned by David Surkov a Ukrainian entrepreneur who is also a very keen ILCA sailor. A member of Queen Mary SC David has stepped up and is supporting the Nationals providing free Pizza on the opening evening of the first days racing. UKLA and its member say Thank You.

Here David gives us his story....

"Before Covid times I visited Andrew Simpson Academy in Weymouth and that's where the recent journey started. Of course I did a fair amount of competitive sailing in Optimist and Cadet in Ukraine between the ages of 10 and 15 but then life happened and sailing was postponed for the next 30 years. Few years ago I was finally ready to come back to sailing which began with standard RYA courses at the Andrew Simpson Academy.

"After doing the RYA levels for a year or so, as well as their weekend sailing clubs in a Zest, it was clear that I needed more than that, so I started doing sessions in ILCA and Aero with them until it was obvious that I had to get my own boat.

"It was actually a difficult choice as it seemed like Aero was the one to go for but common sense prevailed and I went for a more popular ILCA. I am very grateful to the Andrew Simpson coaches for helping me get back to sailing and I full heartedly recommend them to everyone who wants to make the leap into this sport.

"After a period of aimlessly coasting my new ILCA in Portland Harbour, I finally discovered UKLA with their training and qualifiers and joined the circuit in pursuit of ILCA greatness.

"I also discovered Queen Mary Sailing Club which has an incredibly competitive fleet and regularly gets 20 ILCA 7s racing on a Sunday.

"Outside of sailing, I am a tech entrepreneur and investor in a number of startups. PropVerse is one of my latest ventures where we aim to revolutionise access to property information and simplify property transactions all over the world.

"With the help of Artificial Intelligence and other high tech innovations, PropVerse aims to be the first truly open and global property portal. One of the key features of PropVerse is our unique AI based algorithm for an unbiased valuation of any property address.

"It analyses a huge amount of data to produce the valuation which is based purely on what the data says, regardless of human opinions and biases. It's a very useful tool for anyone looking to buy or sell their property as it gives them independent information to consider. AI valuations are freely available for personal use on the propverse.net portal.

"As well as having a multitude of useful tools and property information, PropVerse is an open marketplace, whereby owners can claim their properties and advertise them For Sale to a global audience in just a few clicks. No need for agents if you are are happy to market and sell your property yourself.

"At the end of the day, most owners are probably the best people to sell their own homes. Agents can, of course, use the portal too, just like they use other portals such as Rightmove."