Racing
Of the three most recent GP14 World Championships, those held at Sligo Yacht Club, Ireland, in July/August 2006, and at Abersoch, UK in August 2008, each attracted entries of over 110 boats, while that in Sri Lanka (February 2011) attracted 38 boats from UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, Scandinavia (I think), and Sri Lanka. Although numbers were lower in Sri Lanka they are still highly creditable, given that a very high proportion of the competitors had to travel half way round the world in order to get there and also ship their boats out there.
Each year the UK has a National Championship and a number of regional Championships, plus an Inland Championship and a Youth Championship, plus a considerable number of Open Meetings, and a Grand Prix awarded on the basis of points gained in a specified number of qualifying events from this list. There are also a number of clubs with thriving GP14 racing fleets, and the Class Association offers advanced race coaching to club members, plus an annual intensive week's Youth Racing Course immediately prior to the Youth Championship; a significant number of graduates from this youth course later go on to win major Championships as young adults.
Other countries, very notably including Ireland (almost the second home of the class), likewise have a well-developed pattern of racing covering the spectrum from club racing right up to world class competition.
Read more about this topic: GP14 (dinghy)
Famous quotes containing the word racing:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)