Royal St. George's Ger Owens to Lead Irish Hopes at 100 Boat GP14 World Championships at Skerries

16th June 2022

An impressive 60 Irish boats will compete at the 105-boat World Championships in Skerries this August Credit: Bob Givens

Host club Skerries Sailing Club in North Dublin has 105 entries for the upcoming GP14 World Championship taking place from the 14th to the 19th of August this year.

That number is set to grow further as the event draws closer, according to Championship Organiser and Skerries Sailing Club Secretary Colman Grimes.

Boats from all over Ireland and the UK as well as competitors from as far as Australia, South Africa, Barbados, Ski Lanka and the USA will compete over for the week-long World Championship.

The last world championships was in Mount’s Bay in Cornwall in 2018 and has been postponed twice in Skerries in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.

Skerries has some pedigree when it comes to GP14 world championships as the event was held there 25 years ago in 1997, an event which is still very fondly reminisced about by the older members of the fleet.

GP14 GP14s from all over Ireland and the UK as well as competitors from as far as Australia, South Africa, Barbados, Ski Lanka and the USA will compete over for the week-long World Championship

Some big names will be arriving in Ireland to compete including five-time world champion Ian Dobson, multi-Endeavour Trophy winner and multi-class world champion Nick Craig who is looking to put GP14 world champion on the list, past Topper and GP14 World Champion Neil Marsden amongst many others. Ireland will also be well represented.

Top names such as three-time Olympian and current GP14 National Champion Ger Owens of the Royal St George. Ross Kearney a past Mirror World Champion who finished 2nd at the last GP14 worlds.

There are plenty of other upcoming young sailors that will be looking to get into the mix. Peter Boyle from Sutton Dinghy Club has being showing some consistent form this year with 2nd in each event so far. He has ace crew (and dad) Stephen Boyle in the boat with him.

The GP14 fleet is one of Ireland's largest double-handed classes, regularly attracting over 30 boats to regional events and over 40 to its National Championships.

An impressive 60 Irish boats will compete at the worlds this year. The class has a very vibrant youth section aided by a strong coaching drive within the class. It is expected the youth categories at the championships will be hard-fought for.

There is also a strong category of all-female teams and mixed teams. So overall there is a lot of categories to be contested at the event.

Published in GP14

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