This year at Wessex we will be ensuring parity in Open and Women’s+ tournaments – if we run an Open, we will run a Women’s+ in the same weapon. As a result we are no longer running beginners tournaments and there have been major schedule changes from previous years that will affect both Opens and Women’s+ events. We have also made some small changes to sword rules to codify decisions made last year and have further changes planned in 2026 so please read the below carefully even if you have been to Wessex League before.
We have had to be creative with the schedule to allow for a full set of 8 events, half of which also have A/B skill divisions. Many W+ events run at the same time as an open, with two rounds of pools. The purpose of this is to allow people to enter both the open and Women’s+ if they are eligible, and we will arrange it so that their pools in each event run at different times. All Women’s+ tournaments have had enough spaces allocated to them to allow for large tournaments if there is interest. If you are thinking of entering a Women’s+ event, please try to book within 2 weeks of tickets going on sale. After 2 weeks we will look at the remaining spaces and the waiting list for the opens that run at the same time and may remove empty pools from the Women’s+ events to create spots for the corresponding open, so we expect more waiting list tickets to be released than previous years.
If you miss out on an open ticket, please make sure to join the waiting list here as we expect there to a higher chance this year of waiting list tickets being released because of this change.
- Open Longsword (A & B)
- Open Rapier & Dagger (A & B)
- Open Sabre (A & B)
- Open Sword & Buckler (No division)
- Women’s+ Longsword (A & B)
- Women’s+ Rapier & Dagger (No division)
- Women’s + Sword & Buckler (A&B if over 30 participants)
- Women’s + Sabre (A&B if over 30 participants)
If you miss out on tickets for a particular tournament there is a waiting list which we will offer tickets to as and when they drop out. We recommend registering for any other tournaments you are interested in, and then filling out the waiting list form here. If Women’s+ events are not sold out 2 weeks after tickets go on sale, we will make more spots available in the opens
Note: Where opens and women’s+ events run alongside each other, participants in both tournaments will be placed in a Womens’+ pool that does not conflict with their open pool. However, this is not possible for Women’s+ Rapier & Dagger and Open Sword & Buckler, and you cannot participate in both of these events.
Schedule
Please note that to accommodate the changes all finals for every tournament on the day will be at run at the end
Venue & Travel:
University of Essex Sports Centre, CO4 3SQ – free parking all weekend on campus.
Campus taxi drop-off: north & south entrances; follow signs to “Sports Centre”.
Uber, and local cabs run across Colchester & Wivenhoe.
Getting to the competition venue:
By Train to Colchester (Main) – fast Greater Anglia services from London Liverpool Street in ±1 hour. From the station it’s ~3 miles to campus: hop on bus 51/87 (every 15 min) or grab a taxi (10-15 min).
Wivenhoe – handy if you’re coming from the Clacton/Walton coast; 2 miles to the Sports Centre: 8-min bus (route 51) or 5-min taxi; walkable in about 40 min along the river path.
By Car:
Leave the A12 at the A133 Colchester/Wivenhoe exit and follow signs to “University of Essex”.
Campus multistorey & surface car parks sit 1-4 min from the hall and are free after 18:00 on weekdays and all weekend.
Socials
Friday social: Black Buoy, Black Buoy Hill, Wivenhoe – 5 min by taxi or one stop on the Colchester–Clacton line from Colchester station, or Walton line from Colchester Town.
Saturday social: The Castle Inn, 92 High St, Colchester – kitchen open till 21:30; broad food options nearby.
Closest car parks Car park Post-code On-foot to the pub NCP High Street CO1 1LU 1–2 min (just behind the pub) St Mary’s Multi-storey CO3 3AA 3–4 min via footbridge over Head St Osborne St NCP CO2 7DT ~9 min straight up Queen St/Head St Britannia Long-Stay CO2 7EF 8-10 min through St Botolph’s Priory
Meals and refreshments:
We recommend bringing food with you. While the campus has some food venues it is not clear if they will be fully open on the weekend, and there are limited alternative options nearby. There is a large Tesco 5 minutes drive/30 minutes walk from the venue.
Pizza, tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided for staff only. Anyone staffing at any point over the weekend may help themselves at any time.
Rules & Equipment
Please be sure to read the tournament rules and minimum required equipment requirements. It is your responsibility to make sure you have the correct equipment for the event – if you do not have sufficient or appropriate equipment you will not be allowed to fence in the tournament. If you are missing particular items please contact us and we may be able to arrange something to be borrowed.
Sword Changes
The following rules codify how Wessex League the “vibes based” sword check run prior to 2024, or make changes that either increase permitted swords or do not block swords used last year. Almost all swords that passed checks last year will pass this year, although some swords may need to be tipped that weren’t previously. These rules will be changing from 2026 to further reduce swords that are too stiff. We are giving a year grace period to allow people to acquire new swords if necessary.
Maximum flex on swords (measured by pushing the sword into a scale from the crossguard and taking the maximum reading):
Longsword: 20kg (16kg in from 2026)
Sabre and Sword & Buckler: 14kg
Rapier: 12kg
Tip Area
No sword may have a tip area below 75mm2 (9mm bullet case, Sigi Standard Longsword), with a preferred tip size over 120mm2 (greater than .323 bullet case, or Regenyei Standard rolled tip). Swords with plastic tips may be up to 1cm longer than the normal allowed sword length maximum to allow for the extra material in the tip.
Note: please check your sword before coming, in particular sabres, sideswords and arming swords as many of these have smaller tips. Many smaller tips (e.g. heat shrink end caps) can also come below this minimum. We will have tipping supplies present but you must tip your sword at least 45 minutes before you are fencing to allow the plastic to set. PCL thermoplastic (recommended brand: Whitemorph or Colourmorph by Thermoworx) remains our preferred method for tipping, see this article for best practice on tipping: https://historicalfencingresearch.com/2025/06/13/common-thermoplastic-tip-failures-and-how-to-avoid-them/
Sword Length
Swords for Sword & Buckler may be up to 95cm in length. This reflects the changes in the market since the rules were first written as many sidesword providers do not offer swords within our original permitted lengths.
Sword Mass:
The maximum mass for longsword is reduced to 1700g
The minimum mass for sabre is reduced to 750g
Women’s+ Tournament Entries
The women’s category in HEMA tournaments was originally created to provide meaningful challenges for women. The ultimate aim of providing them has been to: allow fencers to test their skills in a situation without routine physical disadvantages; understand their progress relative to their peers year on year; give greater access to tournaments to an under-represented gender in our sport; ensure people realise that their gender does not prevent them from participating in HEMA.
While the primary intent in the past has been to support women, we recognise that many of considerations above apply equally to many non-binary fencers as well. Therefore, this tournament is open to:
a) Women (for the avoidance of doubt: cis or trans)
b) Any non-binary fencers who feel the issues above also apply to them, and that their presence in the tournament wouldn’t detract from the aims in regards to women
We recognise that there are a wide range of non-binary genders, and not all of them will feel comfortable participating in the women’s tournament. It is entirely up to the fencer in question whether they think the Women’s+ is suitable for them. The Open tournaments are all open to any gender.
Volunteering:
If you would like to volunteer but haven’t signed up, there may still be opportunities depending on how many volunteers we have. Please fill out the Volunteering details below and email at wessexleague@gmail.com so that we can apply the discount after the fact.
- Competitors who would like to help us as volunteers receive a free lunch and a discount on your ticket
- This year we are offering one free tournament entry for volunteers
- Volunteers also get early booking for each event
- If you have received a volunteer code, please use it at checkout
- ONLY volunteering as an official, without participating in any tournaments – FREE of charge. We will pay up to £75 towards your travel costs and will provide lunch on a day of volunteering.
Cost to attend:
• ONLY volunteering as an official, without participating in any tournaments – FREE of charge.
- £35 per open competition entry
- £30 Women’s+ tournaments
Disclaimer: By registering you agree to the following statement:
“I understand that whilst every care will be taken to give safe instruction, I accept full responsibility and consider myself fit to participate, and that there are inherent risks with competitive martial arts. I will follow instructions by judging staff and tournament organisers, be respectful of my fellow competitors, and use equipment in good condition with no known flaws. I have answered all questions correctly and all medical and health considerations are noted below.”
How we use your data: Your will be used primarily for managing our events, and for research into safety at HEMA tournaments. By registering you agree to share the data from your matches with HEMA Ratings and HEMA Scorecard,. We cannot accept your registration if you do not agree to this as these are necessary to run the event. Your results will also be posted on our website. We record injury data as part of understanding and managing risk across our events. Anonymised data (including injury data) may be shared with researchers for specific projects, but we will not share your name or other details, and your data will never be used for marketing purposes outside of informing you of our own events. For a more detailed description see our privacy page.
If you don’t want to appear in HEMA Ratings, you can contact HEMA Ratings directly and ask for your record to be anonymised. Your data will still be submitted, but it will not appear in any public page. If your HEMA rating is anonymised, please email us about whether you feel Tier A or Tier B is more appropriate for you in any of the tournaments you have registered for.
If a tournament doesn’t appear in the list below it means it is sold out. If you missed out on a tournament please sign up to the waiting list by clicking here. If anyone drops out we will contact you. 2 weeks after booking opens we will be reviewing W+ spaces and may expand opens if there are free pistes.
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.