First Impressions of the New GP14 Training Boat

Many of you will have seen the new Winder GP14 boat which the club has purchased recently to add to the training fleet.

This new boat (hull number 14073) will be designated “No 1” in our training fleet and is easily recognised by having a silver grey colour to the hull, rather than the white of the other boats.

This is the first time we have purchased a Winder Boat and it has a few subtle differences compared with the other training boats. Having had the privilege of sailing her a couple of times, I thought it would be worth sharing my initial impressions.

When rigging or de-rigging the boat, note that this has a “boom down” cover. So be aware of this when talking through how to de-rig the boat. There is currently one other training boat like this; Try to teach the novices to lay the boom across the fore and after decks to make a ridge along the centre of the boat, to throw off the rain.

When rigging the boat, having done the hatches, the most obvious difference is that the Main halyard exits the mast on the left hand side, and needs to be led upwards into a cleat. Personally, I was a bit concerned about this, since I could see a novice failing to cleat the halyard tightly; a knock might just dislodge it. My recommendation is that, having raised the mainsail, you ensure that the cleat is on tight and then pass the halyard once round the mast (above the kicker mounting), as an extra safety measure.

The Genoa on the new boat is straightforward. We have stuck a blue tape round the mast, and the bottom of the tape should align with the bottom of the hook to get the correct rig tension.

As with the other training boats, this one has through-deck sheeting for the genoa. I have found that, when beating, there is still a few inches of sheet visible when the genoa is hardened in completely. I am not sure whether this is because the sails were originally designed for on-deck sheeting, or whether the shape of the deck is slightly different; probably the former.

On the subject of the genoa, the fore-and-aft setting of the cars is interesting (!), although we shouldn’t really need to change them for a training boat, I guess.

The Spinnaker is through-deck on this boat, and at the moment it still has the spinnaker guy/sheet rigged in place. This may give rise to a few questions from novices. We could remove it, but it may take a bit of effort to re-rig it every time we need to fly the kite. What this means is that if you need to borrow a spinnaker for No1 boat, you don’t need a guy/sheet.

[Note to Racers: We will probably change this in the near future; expect that the spinnaker sheet/guy will be de-rigged, and kept in the spinnaker bag, as with the other boats. One reason is that we don’t want any continuous ropes in any of the training boats; as they can get round people’s feet. The only issue with this is that it is a tapered sheet and therefore runs well through the 'through-deck' sheeting.  We suspect the non-tapered sheet provided with the others won't run very well.  So people will need to be stricter on ensuring that Spinnaker Bag 1 has Spinnaker 1 and Spinnaker Sheet 1 in it. ]

Also worth noting is that the spinnaker pole has a single stowage on the right hand side at the front. The pole height adjustment is on the thwart; pull it up to raise the pole, release to lower.

The rudder system is also unique to this boat; There is no transom spring-clip like the other training boats. Instead, the rudder is held in place by an  “O” ring / clip which fastens onto the rudder stock. It’s similar to the system used in Lasers. However, it does mean that we need to ensure that we keep this rudder with this boat at all times.

The Centre-board is straightforward, and very smooth.

Finally, a unique feature of this boat is the flooding tanks. The insides of the boat have small holes drilled into the side tanks. This means that, in the event of a capsize, water will flood into the side of the tank. This will have two benefits. Firstly, it will mean that the boat is less likely to turn upside down. Secondly, it should ride lower in the water, making it easier for a novice to clamber onto the centre-boat. I resisted the temptation to test this when I took the boat out. However, I would like to see how it works in practice in a controlled environment some time soon, before we have a novice capsize!

All in all this boat is a pleasure to sail, and I am sure that it will be a very popular addition to our training fleet.

Contributors:

Liz Hall

John Rider

Andy Wadsworth

Dennis Adams