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Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThe tablet has now condescended to open the files correctly; no idea what went wrong at the first attempt.
So: …
Six out of the first ten boats are still around, of which Quiver, no. 3, is not currently seaworthy and is in my possession awaiting my attention for a major restoration. Sadly, no. 10 was destroyed in a workshop fire at Don Marine some years ago. That leaves 50% of the first 10 boats still around, still believed to be seaworthy, and still in occasional use.
Of the first hundred boats, I have records (not necessarily fully up to date) of the whereabouts of a further 12 of them, and so far as I am aware they are all in occasional use. There may well be more that I don’t know about.
So that gives a total of at least 17 of the first hundred boats. Not a bad preservation rate, in my view.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorHow many of the first 100 GP14s still around and in use?
An interesting question, and unfortunately I don’t have access to the data while I am away cruising; the relevant speadsheets folder on the tablet appears to be corrupted. But it is an impressively large proportion, provided you accept that for many of them their use will now be only occasional; and these are seriously old boats, dating from 1951, so next year will be their 70th season.
Legend has it that Jack Holt expected a new GP14 to last 25 years, so these vintage boats are now approaching three times that figure.
Famously, Roy Nettleship, while manning the Association stand at the boat show in 1969, was asked how long a GP14 would last: “I’ve no idea, the design’s only 40 years old!”
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThank you for that research.
For anyone who wishes to go down that route, stainless steel is likely to be cheaper (and more readily obtainable) than bronze, and more appropriate on a modern GP14, although owners of vintage boats may well prefer bronze for reasons of historical authenticity. In the UK, one of the leading suppliers of traditional fittings, including in bronze, is Classic Marine, https://www.classicmarine.co.uk.
Personally, if I were installing such a fitting on the stem, primarily for winching a (heavier) boat onto a trailer, I would go for the extra strength and reassurance of a stainless steel U-bolt rather than relying on a fitting with just a single fastener. Most chandlers can supply them from stock; this link is merely one example of many https://www.force4.co.uk/force-4-stainless-steel-u-bolts-m.html.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorWhile away cruising I am struggling with the vagaries of a mobile device – which I increasingly dislike – and patchy borrowed wi-fi. Don’t you just love it when you type a reply and then abruptly lose the lot!
Thank you, Arthur, and it is always good to hear from our American cousins.
However I don’t think that fitting is specifically an American concept, and it is well known in at least some revered UK dinghy cruising circles. No less a person than Margaret Dye (perhaps most famous as the wife of the legendary Frank Dye, but also justly famous in her own right as a revered dinghy cruiser in Wayfarers, Wanderers, and Gull Spirits, and as a DCA member, and as a published writer on dinghy cruising), espouses this system in one of her books, as a means of hauling a beached dinghy above the tide level.
However possibly the majority of GP14 dinghies worldwide, and especially in the UK and Ireland, are used primarily for racing, and do not have this fitting; and even those used primarily for cruising rarely have it – perhaps because the boat is light enough to not normally need to be winched onto a trailer or launching trolley.
Horses for courses; a useful fitting for a minority of GP14 owners, but probably not for the majority.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThere are two separate issues here; preventing the boat from moving bodily aft, and preventing the bows lifting vertically (and thus bouncing up and down).
Note that the usual type of mast support is not designed to withstand horizontal movement of the entire boat; it is a fairly whippy structure designed to support the vertical load of the mast only, and it is certainly not up to securing the boat in place. Indeed I personally use a “body and soul” lashing to prevent the mast from whipping from side to side.
See the paper “Travelling with your GP14” in the Members Area of this site, which discusses this (and other issues).
Normally friction will be sufficient to prevent the boat moving aft any more than a couple of inches – but I stress that this is no more than the normal situation; it is not to be relied upon. Sixty years ago I lost a Heron dinghy (smaller sister to the GP14) straight off the back of the trailer while towing up the hill out of Red Wharf Bay. One solution suggested in that paper is to use the painter, or other rope, provided this is secured to a strong point inside the boat – many cruisers will have a mooring cleat on the foredeck which can serve as a strongpoint, but racers will usually not have such a fitting, however the thwart will suffice as a strong point; then lead it forward over the deck, via the anchor fairlead if you have one (failing which lead it through a shackle or a carbine hook or even a rope loop secured to the stemhead fitting), and then to any convenient forward strongpoint on the trailer. Personally, using a combi-trailer, I secure it to the handle of the launching trolley.
Preventing the bows bouncing up and down is already fully discussed in the above paper.
Hope this helps,
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorI am away on my summer cruise, and struggling with just a recalcitrant mobile device, so I hope this makes sense !!!
According to my records (unofficial, but derived from data published on the old Bravenet forum around 15 years ago, with limited updates since then), hull numbers 6001- 7000 were issued 1963-66.
Fuller information would be obtained by asking the Association office for a copy of our digital records for the boat (free to members, if I understand the situation correctly).
Hope this helps.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorYes, and yes, respectively.
You can of course leave the shark’s tooth rack in place, but you will not be using it with your rope halliard.
If your final direction of pull on the halliard when you are hoisting the sail is upwards, which many people find helpful, you will certainly need a turning block (pulley block) to change the direction of the rope.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorIt seems that you have thought through a viable way to do this.
You absolutely must not use the rope tail of the wire halliard, but your proposal to add a wire strop at the head of the sail would be a viable way round this.
However that does entail a significant amount of work for your sailmaker, and if you are going to that degree of modification I personally feel you would do better to add a set of reef points, preferably two rows, and set up a proper slab/jiffy reefing system. That is a far better system, and will give you much more flexibility – in both directions; you will have a second, seriously deep, reef available when needed, and you will also be very glad of having full sail available for light wind conditions.
You will however need to replace your wire halliard with rope, but that need not spoil your racing rig. Although it is vitally important that the luff of the mainsail is stretched to the correct length, the actual tension needed to do this is comparatively modest, and if you use dyneema the stretch in the halliard will be insignificant. Even for larger loads, the stretch in dyneema is comparable with that of wire. Use either 4 mm or 5 mm diameter, and use a clam cleat to cleat it off.
See the paper on Reefing Systems in th Members Area of this site.
Hope this helps,
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorSeriously, don’t rule out buying a wooden one. At least you can see what you are getting, the performance is indistinguishable between wood or plastic, and if you put in the TLC to put a wooden boat into top condition she will be a thing of beauty.
The latter can be achieved with an elderly and cosmetically tired but still sound boat if you put in the TLC over a winter.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorSteve reminds me of the utterly superb polyestermite hoax; the discovery of a newly mutated gribble worm which devours glassfibre, which feeds voraciously, and which in particular eats glassfibre boats.
After a comprehensive survey of the problem, one of the articles about it ended with a comment to the effect that there is however one foolproof solution to the problem. Expensive, to be sure, but 100% effective. Sheath the boat in wood.
Steve’s contribution represents yet another reason why I prefer wooden boats …
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThank you.
And Naiad is looking good.
Just don’t enter her for a Championship event!
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorMore on Bossom’s Boatyard:
I have just had an email from a Past President of the Association, who cautions that he is plumbing the depths of memory, so he may be a little shaky on his facts. Nonetheless I think this is worth making public, with that caveat.
He tells me that he can recall a meeting of the Committee about this. He thinks one of our builders had ceased trading (possibly Dobsons of Shardlow) and the proprietor (name now forgotten) of Bossoms had traded with the moulder, supplying boats as a retailer. So, at short notice and with mutual interest at stake, they took on moulding GPs for a time.
I happen to have many of the old Committee records in my possession at the moment for research purposes, but I haven’t yet started work on that project, and without a date for this meeting it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to trawl them for this one piece of information. However it may perhaps surface when the research project gets underway.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThrubwell58,
More on the Meteor story.
I have had an email enquiry this morning from a Technical Assistant to the Canal & River Trust’s Boat Safety Scheme. He asked my assistance “to help a customer to find out some more information regarding the fuel tank of the Meteor Mk1.
“The customer has a Fenn & Wood Meteor Mk1 which has a marinised Morris engine, the petrol tank is constructed from fibreglass. We would like to establish if this was the original manufacturer’s tank or if the tank has been replaced from the original tank installed.
“We would very much appreciate any information that you may be able to provide however if you do have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.” Dave.Washer@canalrivertrust.org.uk
I wonder whether you can assist directly, or whether alternatively you can put him in touch with Heather Wood, who may perhaps be able to assist.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorThe source for saying that Bossom’s Boatyard built at least some GP14s was the first post in this string; the member’s boat has a Bossom’s builder’s plate, and he attaches a photo.
Agreed that I had not previously known that their output included GPs, and they are not mentioned in the literature. However as a well known boatyard I am not entirely surprised that they clearly did build some; well, this one at least.
Oliver
Oliver Shaw
ModeratorInteresting that Chris and I have different takes on it; I did say that my expertise is primarily in wood, and I defer to Chris’s possibly greater experience of GRP boats, but I also note that we are both working from just a single photo.
I think that we are agreed that neither of us would buy that boat, unless of course the price was very tempting and adequately reflected the work needed.
I am reminded of an article that I read around forty years ago by Hugo de Plessis, an expert yacht surveyor and one of the leading authorities on fibreglass construction, who sadly died last year at the age of 94. I was struck by one of his comments about stress cracks, which I appreciate is not what we are seeing here, but it nonetheless illustrates the difficulties of diagnosis. He said that they often tell a story, and that actually seeing them clearly is a notoriously fickle exercise which is heavily dependent on lighting conditions. He stated that it is not unusual for a fully competent surveyor to give a yacht a clean bill of health, and then for another surveyor a few days later who sees her when the sun is in a different direction to condemn her outright!
Oliver
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