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GP14 dinghy sailing
Irish GP14 Dinghy Sailing News and Regatta Results
GP14s Train for World Championships at East Down YC on Strangford Lough
#gp14 – A great weekend event was hosted by East Down Yacht Club (EDYC) ahead of the upcoming GP14 World Championships on Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland writes Shane McCarthy. Olympic sailor Matt McGovern was on hand to share his knowledge and…
Mullingar Sailing Club Hosts Bumper GP14 Fleet for Leinster Championships
#gp14 – The GP14 Leinster's hosted by Mullingar SC on lovely Lough Owel in Co. Westmeath had a great entry of 36 boats from 15 clubs, from Moville in Donegal to Youghal in Cork writes Norman Lee. The tide was…
Irish GP14 Dinghy Season Starts With 'O'Tiarnaigh Challenge' at Swords Sailing Club
#gp14 – The first Irish GP14 event of the 2014 season was the Riocard O' Tiarnaigh Challenge held at Swords Sailing Club on the 26th silver and gold fleets starting separately. Each fleet takes part in up to nine qualifying races spread over…
GP14 Nationals Hosts And Sailors Raise Thousands For Make-A-Wish
#GP14 - A fundraising effort at the recent Craftinsure GP14 Championship of Ireland has helped raise more than €4,000 for Make-A-Wish Ireland. Last Thursday 14 November a cheque for €4,218 was presented to the charity's representative Martina Madden by Sutton…
GP14 Success for Royal St. George's Ger Owens & Melanie Morris
#Gp14 – The forecast for the first day of the Craftinsure GP14 Championship of Ireland at Sutton Dinghy Club did not make for great reading with less than 6 knots from north west. However as boats started arriving and getting…
GP14 Leaders Ger Owens & Melanie Morris Look for More Wind on Final Day
#gp14 – With a forecast for the Irish GP14 National suggesting a little more breeze than Saturday but locals concerned that the sea breeze might neutralise Windguru's northerly 8 knots, cautious optimism was the order of the day. First the…
GP14 Dinghy Fleet to Top 50 Boats for Irish Championship at Sutton
#gp14 – With 43 entries already in, Stephen Boyle and Hugh Gill, Class Captain and Event Organiser respectively are quietly confident that eventual numbers for the weekend's GP14 National Championships on Dublin Bay will exceed 50. The buoyant numbers bodes…
Tough Weekend for GP 14s at Skerries
#gp14 – Strong winds and rough seas led to the cancellation of the second day's racing of this weekend's GP 14 Leinster Championship at Skerries Sailing Club writes Gerry Byrne. But a win and two seconds in Saturday's three races were sufficient…
GP14 World Dinghy Sailing Championship to be Hosted on Strangford Lough
gp14 – East Down Yacht Club has announced that they will be hosting the GP 14 World Championship in August 2014. This will probably be the largest ever dinghy sailing championship to be held on Strangford Lough. It is anticipated…
Dead Heat for GP14 Ulster Title
#gp14 – Top placed Irish boat at the recent GP14 World championships Ger Owens and Melanie Morris have won the GP14 Ulsters. Held over the weekend 1st & 2nd September on Larne Lough the 2012 Championship produced a series of…
Dun Laoghaire GP14 Pair Finish World Championships in Fifth Place Overall
#gp14 – Dun Laoghaire's GP14 pairing of Ger Owens and Melanie Morris from the Royal St. George YC have finished fifth overall at the 127-boat World championships in Cornwall today. The second half of the championships featured strong winds and…
Royal St. George Pair Stay Fifth Overall at GP14 World Champs
#gp14 – Royal St. George's Ger Owens and Melanie Morris have posted a second and a fifth yesterday to stay fifth overall and nine points off the lead at the massive 127-boat GP14 Worlds in Cornwall. Fresh from the Olympic…
Olympic Sailor Leads Irish Hopes at GP14 Worlds in Cornwall
#gp14 – Triple Irish Olympic sailor Ger Owens crewed by Melanie Morris lies fifth overall at the GP14 World championships in Cornwall after three races sailed in the 127-boat fleet. Owens and Morris have moved up two places after Monday's…
Irish Olympic 470 Ace Lying Seventh at GP14 Worlds in Cornwall
#gp14 – It was only a short hop from Weymouth to Cornwall last week when the Olympic regatta finished for Irish 470 sailor Ger Owens who is currently placed seventh overall at the GP14 World championships underway at Looe Sailing…
Irish GP14 Victory Goes to Senior and White on Belfast Lough
#gp14 – The GP14 Irish National Championships took place last Saturday and Sunday at Ballyholme Yacht Club. The event was kindly sponsored by Craftinsure Insurance and North Down Borough Council Tourism. Almost 40 boats from Ireland and England attended the…
Ballyholme to Host GP14 National Championships
#GP14–Ballyholme Yacht Club on Belfast Lough will host the Irish GP14 Championships on July 21st and 22nd. In 2014, the GP14 World Championships come to Northern Ireland for the first time in many years, so next month's  CraftInsure Irish Championship…

The GP14 is a popular sailing dinghy, with well over 14,000 boats built.

The class is active in the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and parts of north-eastern USA, and the GP14 can be used for both racing and cruising. 

Designed by Jack Holt in 1949, with the assistance of the Dovey Yacht Club in Aberdyfi. The idea behind the design was to build a General Purpose (GP) 14-foot dinghy which could be sailed or rowed, capable of also being powered effectively by a small outboard motor, able to be towed behind a small family car and able to be launched and recovered reasonably easily, and stable enough to be able to lie to moorings or anchor when required. Racing soon followed, initially with some degree of opposition from Yachting World, who had commissioned the design, and the boat soon turned out to be an outstanding racing design also.

The boat was initially designed with a main and small jib as a comfortable family dinghy. In a design philosophy that is both practical and highly redolent of social attitudes of the day the intention was that she should accommodate a family comprising parents plus two children, and specifically that the jib should be modest enough for "Mum" or older children to handle, while she should perform well enough to give "Dad" some excitement when not taking the family out. While this rig is still available, and can be useful when using the boat to teach sailing, or for family sailing, and has some popularity for cruising, the boat is more commonly seen with the full modern rig of a mainsail, genoa and spinnaker. Australian boats also routinely use trapezes.

GP14 Ireland Event Dates 2023

  • O'Tiarnaigh (Apr 22-23) Blessington Sailing Club
  • Ulsters (May 20-21) East Antrim Boat Club
  • Munsters (Jun 17-18) Tralee Bay Sailing Club
  • Leinsters (Jul 7-9) Dun Laoghaire Regatta
  • SOYC (Aug 19-20) Rush Sailing Club
  • Nationals (Sep 1-3) Sutton Dinghy Club
  • Hot Toddy (Sep 30-Oct 1) Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club

 

At A Glance – GP14 Dinghy Specifications

Crew 2
Draft 1,200 mm (47 in)
Hull weight 132.9 kg
LOA 4.27 m (14 ft)
Beam 1.54 m
Spinnaker area 8.4 m2
Upwind sail area 12.85 m2

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