GP14 Nationals - here we come !

We're booked in.

The GP14 Class Association just announced that they sold their 70-boat allocation for the 2017 GP14 Nationals in 29 days! This makes it now officially the most popular since 2004, which was a couple of years before I joined what is now the Welsh Harp Sailing Club.

This year, the National are at Looe Sailing Club, in Cornwall, on 6 Aug - 11 Aug 2017. I hope to stay with relatives in Cornwall that week. I suspect that bookings will be hard to come by in Looe that week.

This will be my second Nationals. The first ever time was in 2015, in Brixham, Devon, when the fleet was about 45 boats, and the sailing was in Tor Bay. This time, the fleet will be significantly bigger, and the venue is more open. The World Championships were held there a few years ago, and the waves were the stuff of legend.

Joining me in 13941 will be Simon Carman. Simon has crewed for me a couple of times this year already. He has previously done some sea sailing as a youngster, and is just returning to the sport. So he has loads of experience and confidence. Although we were back of the fleet at the club racing the last couple of outings, I think we will gell together well as a team. His wife, Gill, also sails, but it is Simon who is the real "competitor".

Our plan is to build on our teamwork on Saturday morning practice, and club racing. We are also hopeful that we can do Tuesday racing during the summer as well. It will all be time on the water, which will help us get our techniques honed. For sea experience, I want to go back to Tollesbury this year, and maybe Poole, which is the week before the Nationals.

I've been back at the gym, with help from Andy Howell, who has been a Personal Trainer for me for a number of years. The emphasis for the next few months will be on cardio and building "recovery time".

The Welsh Harp Sailing Club has had an amazing turnout for the Nationals this year. A total of 12 boats are signed up. The list includes some of the best sailers in the club:

• Tomasz Szkola
• Steve Cooper
• Maciej Matyjaszczuk & Jim Dimond
• Edward Coyne & Szymon Matyjaszczuk
• Andy Wadsworth & Andy Shrimpton
• Roger Walton & Helen Allen
• Lesley Kaye & Nick Masters
• Richard Connett
• Ruslan Scutelnic ("Scooter") & Alexandru Scutelnic
• Lydia Evans
• Alistair Lambert & Karen Wilson

I think that makes WHSC the biggest club represented at the Nationals this year.

The social events will be something to look forward to, as well.

I intend to keep a blog going as we head towards the big event...

Bloody Mary 2017 - The Drifting Regatta

After a fairly uneventful period of sailing, the new year 2017 started off with the Bloody Mary at Queen Mary Sailing Club. It's a great venue, always well organised, and this year there were 244 boats attending.

Hannah and I were able to get some practice in the Wassal handicap race on 1st January (we did manage to stay ahead of the final Merlin Rocket), but this was a much larger, and longer event.

I had tried to learn lessons from Last Years Regatta, where the winds were fairly strong and the course was very complex. So we arrived really early, got the boat together in good time, and were able to pick up on course notes, which were duly gaffer-taped under a piece of waterproof plastic, just in case...

This year, the Welsh Harp Sailing Club were out in (almost) force, with 4 boats from the club, including Steve Cooper, who ended up 44th in the entire fleet. Most of us were in the photo in the QM clubhouse beforehand.



We had problems with the spinnaker last year, so extra attention paid to rigging was required...

The weather forecast had been for slight winds, disappearing to virtually nothing after an hour or so. But a glance out of the window suggested that the wind was strong enough to be exciting - maybe we were in for a repeat of the last year?

The "Blue" group were launched (boats about 20 mins behind the first gun), and we managed to get orientated and try the line. At the 24 minute gun, we had good speed, and were close to the start, just ducking one boat and then heading off to the right hand side of the course.

I'd set up the "RaceQs" GPS system, and we were later able to review our first beat against Maciej - it looked like we had better boat speed at times, but were not  able to point as high, so the other GP14 were beginning to pull away ahead of us.

The first beat was exciting, then it was time to launch the kite. We managed to keep position on the first downwind leg, heading to the red and white flag on top of mark number 2. But the wind was beginning to drop. The wind dropped. And dropped. There was no wind. And the RS200 asymmetric spinnaker boats were lighter than us and catching up.

We did manage to get round the second mark, and headed back upwind for the next beat, but we had had the best wind of the day - the "drifting regatta" was here for the day.

There were seven more marks in the next two hours.

By mark number 4 we were able to throw up the kite again. Although there were a few boats overtaking us, we did seem to have some good boat speak - in the circumstances. But, of course, being a heavy boat, the GP14 was not ideally suited to the conditions. The lighter boats had the advantage.

The winning boat was a Firefly,

We ended up 188th place out of 244 boats that took part.

Not ideal conditions, but we took part.  It was a great day - hopes for the rest of this year !