GP14 Nationals at South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club - Review

Stuart Bithell and Christian Birrell (with Steve Boon of Boon Boats) win the GP14 National Championships © Andy Bury

2nd and 3rd places go to 14021 and 14082 in the GP14 National Championships © Andy Bury

South Caernarvonshire Yacht Club on the Lleyn Peninsular in North Wales, has just ended a week of hosting the GP14 National Championships. Part of the much coveted Grand Prix series, the event attracted over 50 boats raced under guidance of PRO, Malcolm Blackburn. The conditions for the competitors varied throughout the week, testing the array of past and potentially future World, National and Youth Champions. On the water throughout the week have been an array of boat builders and sailmakers, with almost every combination pushing the top ten. The GP14 is going through a period of transition; new builders are seeing that the fleet is moving in the right direction with Winder and Boon developing the Epoxy hull, Alistair Duffin continually improving his World Championship winning design. Elite Sails are the most recent addition to the market, joining Goacher Sails, Speed with their Aeroweb, North sails transferring their recent success in the Solo fleet to the GP, as well as Pinnell & Bax continuing their development and Omegas pushing the more established lofts.

Day one sponsored by Chloe Brennan started bang on time, however Mark Wolf culled the race as he ended on a collision course with the Gate Launch, there being only one loser in that battle. Mark was sent home for an early bath. The restarted race started with a beat towards St Tudwal’s Island into the southerly breeze, led by the current World Champions Ian Dobson & Andy Tunnicliffe after their victory in Sri Lanka in February; they were challenged by the remainder of the fleet, including Fireball/Solo specialists Tom Gillard & Bruce Deppe and current Merlin Nationals Champs and subsequent Endeavour trophy holders Stuart Bithell & Christian Birrell (Stuart is campaigning a 470 as crew for the 2012 Games at Weymouth). The supreme skills of these two shone through by the end of the race passing the GP specialists when the wind veered, changing the reaching angles on the final triangle of the course.

Day 2 was sponsored by Allen, the fleet greeted with a light force 2 swinging breeze. Race 2 was led at the windward mark by Dave Young & Seonaid Fleming followed by Dobson & Tunnicliffe, 2nd in Sundays race. The ebbing tide being quite strong, turned the first reach into a tactical run with places changing right down the fleet, it tending to pay to go low, taking on the tide earlier in the leg. The OOD made the call to curtail the race after a tortuous run against the tide with not enough wind to catch and surf the choppy waves. Young & Fleming held on to the lead, taking the gun from Dobson, his second 2nd. Third in this race were the P&B boys of Ross Kearney & Ed Bradburn, just ahead of stablemates, Tom Gillard & Bruce Deppe.

The P&B sponsored day was day 3, most of the competitors surprised at the force 3 southerly that greeted them as they arrived at the beach. Race 3 was started by Stuart Bithell & Christian Birrell, and they pretty much led from start to finish, the photos of them leading the way on www.gp14.co.uk quite impressive. Mike & Lizzie Senior sailing a Harken fitted Duffin, powered by the new Speed Aeroweb weaved their way downwind to join the leaders, and used the RRS to their advantage resulting in 2,160 degrees of penalties being completed by their closest rivals including the then leaders of the event, Dobson & Tunnicliffe. This allowed the Seniors to get up to 2nd place in the race, still 30 boats lengths or so behind the Bithell/Birrell/Boon combination. A shortened course seemed inevitable with the length of time the fleet had been sailing, missed though by the runaway leaders who, rather than harden up with their kite to the committee boat, dropped the spinnaker for the start of the next beat. Seniors, having clocked the ‘S’ flag raced to the line to take the gun, Bithell realising his mistake too late to rescue 2nd, that taken by another of the Seniors 720 victims, Gillard & Deppe.

Race 4 had Dave Young as Pathfinder, this time on a much shorter race track, the PRO clearly wanting the fleet to sail the full course of two triangles with the sausage. Being a shorter beat there were fewer opportunities for the silver fleet boats to make tactical mistakes, so a small group were up there in the top ten as the fleet started the downwind legs. Leading again though, making up for his error in race 3 was Stuart Bithell, followed by a slightly different group of gold fleeters, Shane MacCarthy & Andy Davis alongside Simon Potts & Chris Robinson being in pursuit. These three held positions for the duration of the race, resulting in the Boon boat sailed by Bithell & Birrell taking their second win.

Another southerly breeze on Nuffield Wednesday of around 10-15 mph gave champagne sailing for the fleet as they caught up from Mondays loss of one race. The PRO only having the one race 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 Winder boat with P&B sails of Ross Kearney & Ed Bradburn although a few incidents around the race track resulted in them dropping to 6th. Passing them were Mike & Lizzie Senior and Ian Dobson & Andy Tunnicliffe, both sailing Duffin hulls although neither were able to wrestle the race away from the pathfinders, Tom Gillard & Bruce Deppe also sailing a Winder with a P&B rig. This result with four races to go left 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..

Thursday saw the PRO setting the most amazing reaching angles any fleet could wish for. After hard gruelling beats, the GPs were flying downwind, catching and surfing down the swell off the Abersoch coastline in 15-20 knot breeze. Race 6 of the 9 race series was off under the guidance of Richard Instone & Jim Toothill with a long beat into the south-westerly wind. The lead pack of the P&B Gillard/Deppe combination were up there with the Goacher pair of Bithell & Birrell. But it was the lightweight crew in the Speed Aeroweb driven Harken Duffin of Mike & Lizzie Senior that blew the event wide open as they flew downwind to take the race from Bithell.

Race 7 on Elite Sails day, saw Steve Parker onboard the pathfinder boat crossing the fleet with great advertising to the nationals congregation. Like the rest however, he was only a spectator to the more than impressive display on show by the Bithell, Birrell & Boon combo up front. Putting over 500 lbs of tension in the rig certainly tested the hull in the building breeze and boy did it make the boat fly. Ian Dobson did his best to hang on, the only boat to be within 300 yards of the leaders by the time the last reach was being sailed. Someway behind Dobson/Tunnicliffe were Shane MacCarthy & Andy Davis adding to their consistent set of results.

With a day to go for the gold fleet sailors, it’ll take Stuart Bithell throwing it away to remove him from the top of the rankings; and how close did he come to doing just that?? A change in wind direction brought with it a change of fortune for the Olympic hopeful with his crew Christian Birrell. The early starters lost hugely to those starting late out of the gate, and Bithell started early, his closest adversary Dobson getting away clean, leading the fleet around the racetrack. Bithell fought his way from late 30s upto 26th, but with a 10th early in the week and Dobson taking the gun, control had dramatically changed hands. Dobson had to do a “Ben Ainslie” to Bithell, sail him down the pan in the final race and the nationals trophy would be back on his mantlepiece. However, both Gillard and Senior had had good results in the penultimate race to leave the event open, four crews with their hands on the trophy, as the last race got underway, started by the flying Graham Jones with crew Connie Hicklin. Dobson was tracking Bithell who was trying to get a clean getaway in the congested start area. On the second beat Dobson chose his moment to prevent Bithell getting a good result, mindful that the Seniors were now in the lead & more importantly Tom Gillard & Bruce Deppe were up there being a threat of taking second, maybe first if Dobson got it wrong. The kickers in each of the top boats must have been used as an Abacus to keep on top of the ever changing situation. Bithell broke free from Dobson’s cover halfway up the beat, moving on to take 2nd in the race behind Mike & Lizzie Senior.

So it was the Boon boat steered by Stuart Bithell in its first year of manufacture to the top step of the podium, a jubilant Steve & Jane Boon satisfied that their hard work has been proven to be a success in the Nationals as well as on the Midland Circuit under the helm of Pete Mitchell. Second place overall were Dobson & Tunnicliffe, just pipping the Seniors, ahead of Gillard/Deppe on countback.

As for the silver fleet, despite the late efforts of Graham Jones, Ian Sinclair and Mark Wolf, the top Silver sailors were Rich Bennett crewed by Chris White from South Staffs SC. Bronze was taken by Gavin Tullett & Mark Wilson, Calum Mackenzie & Alison Norbury taking second. An array of other trophies were distributed at the prize-giving, including top female helm, taken by Ellie Davies crewed by Nicola Booth, again from South Staffs who just beat Derwent Water SC for the top club prize. The next championships for the GPs is at Blithfield SC in Staffordshire for the Inlands on 8th-9th October, followed by the Worlds 2012 in Looe. Entries for the latter is already open, 12 boats already signed up for what should be a cracking event.

Overall Results: