GP Sunday

Amanda and I took the GP14 out yesterday for her maiden race. Westerly, 15 knots gusting to a shade over 25, though to be fair, it felt more at times. As it almost always does when you're in the teeth of it. I couldn't persuade Amanda to fly the kite, but, secretly, was kind of glad one of us was being sensible about things.

She's a lovely boat, very good fun. Lower to the water than the Albacore, shorter in length but beamy and a little heavier, I think. The Albacore kind of glides through the tacks and gybes, whereas I found the GP14 more prone to stalling briefly. That could have been the conditions. It could be practice. It could be the fact that the balance of the GP is so much more biased towards the relatively huge genoa. With the Albie, when I pump in the main as we come back out of a roll tack, I feel a definite response. With the GP14 yesterday, not so much.

On the other hand, the GP is a slower boat, with a commensurately higher handicap, so you're very much in the thick of the racing with the other boats in a mixed fleet, which is definitely good fun.

With regards to the racing, we definitely did not cover ourselves in glory.

We were slow getting onto the water so very late on the start for the first race. But that wasn't unexpected, we were rigging a new boat for the first time with the help of the previous owner. Better to ask the questions and get things right in the first place. It's so much more complicated fixing things once you're on the water.

The second race initially looked much more promising. A small crowd of eleven boats made the start, and we hit the line close to the pin and moving nicely just as the gun went, which put us ahead of most of the pack as we rounded the windward mark.

Clean air and uncomplicated mark roundings made for a fast race, only spoilt by me on the third lap when we forgot that buoy #4 was a mark of the course and sailed a fast, fun, spray-soaked reach to #6 instead. We didn't spot our mistake until almost making the same unforced error on the fourth lap, at which point it was far to late to correct and so, in effect, retired. 

But we were having fun so continued to race, despite the fact we knew our race was already over.