Union Nationale pour la Course au Large

The Union Nationale pour la Course au Large, also called UNCL, was a French yacht club that organised offshore racing. It was established in 1971 through a merger of the Union Nationale des Croiseurs and the Groupe des Croiseurs Légers. The first of those had been formed at Brest in 1913 to organise offshore racing in France, which fell outside the statutes of the Yacht Club de France at that time, and the second was formed in 1960 by Alain Maupas to organise races for smaller craft. UNCL ran races around the French coast, including the Trophée Atlantique UNCL and the Trophée Méditerranée IRC UNCL. With the British Royal Ocean Racing Club it was responsible for the International Rating Certificate, the principal international handicap system for yacht racing. On 30 September 2022 it was absorbed into the Yacht Club de France.