2018 Gul GP14 World Championship – Day 5

08/08/2018

Day 5 – Friday 03 August 2018

Report by Michelle Evans – Photo Gallery – Day 5

Going into the last day Mike and Chris had the overnight lead, one point ahead of fellow club mates Ross and Ed. Given the flukey results there was still a mathematical chance of the top seven being able to win it but realistically they were sailing to get into the top six prize winning positions.

There was much speculation about whether there would be a race at all given the light winds and uninspiring forecast but the RO once again managed to get us out there and commendably got all the races in for the regatta.

Ger Owens and Melanie Morris (Royal St George YC) were pathfinder again for the final race of the event (Race 9) and we slowly floated away. The leaders Mike and Chris were first round windward and for the rest of us we all seemed to hit the mark together and with no wind which lead to the inevitable shouting and us all rafted up together again. With a different wind direction and course area to the rest of the week we had a nice view of the shore and mount at all points of the race. For me this was the highlight as we seemed to get caught up in every possible incident at the marks. And then it was all over, a fantastic event at a stunning venue.

After the first day of racing and three races, Mike and Chris were lying fourteenth overall and many had written off their chances of winning this week. They went on to win three races and finish a comfortable ten points ahead of Ross and Ed who had a brilliant event themselves, not managing a race win but had all of their counting results in the top ten. Neil Marsden bettered on his Barbados performance to finish third with the 2016 world champs Shane and Taxi relegated to fourth. Nick Craig came fifth, Matt Burge sixth. Having won a race is unlikely to have dampened the disappointing overall result for national champs Ian and Andy who just had one too many high counting results outside of the top twenty. Their disappointment mirrored that of Mike and Chris’ last year when they narrowly lost to them for the Nationals title. The strength and breadth of the competition in the Class will hopefully see them renewed and back in the future to battle it out for the title.

PL18-GPworlds-fri-418-HD Other notable mentions go to Gingerboats’ Andy Smith and Phil Hodgkins (Bassenthwaite SC) who managed to win two races to finish twelfth overall.

In the Silver Fleet Ciaron and Tim Jones finished an outstanding sixteenth overall, taking a couple of Platinum Fleet scalps. In the Bronze Fleet, George and Neil Meredith got a couple of great results in the twenties and finished first Bronze and fiftieth overall.

Thanks to final race and spot prize sponsor Exe Sails. Overall Buddy group sponsor was West System Resin and Gurasu and Maciej provided the prosecco. In a first for the Class we had fireworks as part of the closing ceremony which were kindly sponsored by Amco Drilling (Richard Instone) and Primal Cure (Steve Bennett). Fuse provided free 4G WiFi all week to the event and tracking was provided by Sailing Southwest/Tracace.

Lady St Leven presented the keeper prizes which were sponsored by Harken, Gul, Craftinsure, Paintcraft, Duffin and Marine 13 with trophies from Gurasu for first lady crew trophy, Ann Penny for all female boat and Laura and Andy Thompson sponsored the Race 9 trophy in honour of their father Ronnie.