GP14 National Championships at South Caernarvonshire YC day 4

by Matt Thursfield on 4 Aug 2011 GP14 National Championships is being hosted by South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club on the Lleyn Peninsular in North Wales from 30th July to 5th August.

Another great looking breeze welcomed the GP14 Nationals competitors to the beach on Wednesday to catch up on the lost race from Monday. Nuffield Health were the sponsors of the day.

Yet another southerly breeze around 10-15 mph gave champagne sailing from start to finish, the race being started by Tom Gillard and Bruce Deppe in the Winder hull with P and B sails. The PRO only having the one race today gave a large course and allowed it to run its full length so the winners were going to have earned their bullet. Looking good early on was the other top Winder boat with P and B sails of Ross Kearney and Ed Bradburn although a few incidents around the race track resulted in them dropping to sixth. Passing them were Mike and Lizzie Senior and Ian Dobson and Andy Tunnicliffe, both sailing Duffin hulls although neither were able to wrestle the race away from the pathfinders, Gillard and Deppe. This result with four races to go leaves the championships wide open, four boats with a realistic chance of becoming Nationals winner, although with a nine race series there is still plenty of interest of victory for another four crews.

Lower down the fleet the race for silver fleet is just a tight. Leading a group of seven home were Daniel and Hugh Gill ahead of Bill Kenyon and Ben Ditchburn, although the Bennett/White pairing still wears the blue disc just ahead of Ellie Davies and Nicola Booth.

For the bronze fleet, another win for the Tullett/Wilson team with a second great result from Ann Penny with a top 30 placing followed home by Duncan and Gail Fraser from Ceylon Motor YC in Sri Lanka.

The top bronze boat is almost unassailable however Mark Fleming and Richard Booth are hoping the breeze stays to take second off Cal Mackenzie and Alison Norbury, who need the light stuff to return.

Two more races on Elite Sails Thursday should give a clearer picture as to who will take the Nationals GP14 UK Class Association website