Countdown to the Gul GP14 World Championship at Mount's Bay Sailing Club
by Michelle Evans 25 Jul 2018 20:06 AEST
29 July - 3 August 2018
Mount's Bay, Cornwall, UK © Michelle Evans
From Saturday 28 July Marazion in Cornwall will be flooded with over 400 GP14 sailors, their families and friends as the 2018 Gul GP14 World Championship is contested against the back drop of the Mount.
Held on a bi-annual basis and rotated between a UK venue, Irish venue and overseas venue this year's event is following on from the fantastic numbers that attended the 2016 Barbados Worlds and has 120 boats attending and some of the best amateur dinghy sailors in the country. There are so many Gold Fleet sailors attending that there will be a special Platinum Fleet introduced after the first three days for the top fifteen boats.
There are 35 sponsors, including title sponsor Gul, and the event will also be the first for the class to have live boat tracking thanks to a partnership with Southwest Sailing and Tracace.
The competitors will have a lot to look forward to including morning race clinics with top sailors, including Ian Dobson, Andy Tunnicliffe, Shane MacCarthy, Andy Davis, Mike Senior, Chris White, Matt Burge and Simon Potts, ten races, daily prizes and social events and there will also be activities for the non-sailors with beach games for the children every day.
For those following the event at home there is a dedicated event page - www.gp14.org/worlds2018 - where you will be able to find the daily results, prize winners and links to the race tracking and also plenty of coverage on social media with Facebook live feeds and daily interviews.
The event has also enticed in sailors from other classes including 2016 Blaze National Champion Eden Hyland who is looking forward to his first big GP14 event.
"I will be sailing the 2018 Worlds with my brother Josh crewing for me. We are new to GP14s having only sailed a handful of opens around the midlands and the GP14 youths at Chase. Myself and Josh have also done a few years together doing shifts at the WLYC 24 hour race, which has been the highlight of our GP14 sailing so far with our team coming sixth in 2017.
"What I am looking forward to most about the GP14 Worlds is being able to sail against the high-quality sailors that the GP14 class offers. I see this at a Club level and then having taken part in the Midland Areas at Chase SC this year where we had 40 boats and half of them Gold Fleet - the standard was crazy.
"We have a very high standard of GP14 sailors at Chase who provide tight spectacular racing every weekend. The combination of some helm and crew experience in the GP can be over 50 years, so great competition. The most enjoyable part is in the bar at the end discussing what working and what did not work on the water!
"We have both been lucky enough to sail a lot of classes as our club members at Chase SC are extremely kind enough to lend out their boats to us youngsters. The best sailing achievement would have to be winning the 2016 Blaze Nationals. I always love sailing with my brother josh now, we have changed over the years from throwing fists at each other when something went wrong (as most siblings will know). We are able to communicate verbally which helps! I do like how we are constantly pushing each other to the limit and neither of us like to give up or settle for second best."