| Gate Krasher IV |
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Owner Steve Garlick sent us the following message and photo's I bought Gate Krasher IV, hull no 211, in 1991. She was based in Plymouth, and I had seen her out racing round the cans during the evenings and just liked the look of the boat. Also, at the time, there were quite a few GK24s in Plymouth, they had their own open meeting one weekend a year, and the Nationals were intensely competitive, and based just down the coast at Falmouth. Looking at her racing results, she seemed to be the ideal first boat for me, as I wanted something fairly competitive, but not too extreme !  Her previous owner had bought her as a masthead rigged boat back in the eighties. After a couple of years, he converted the rig to fractional in about 1989, using a second hand mast (from a boat called Gate Krasher !). In common with a few other GKs, Gate Krasher IV's deck still bears the scars. For the first year, we raced her carefully (she still felt incredibly tippy !), but fairly hard. The highlight of the year was the trip to Falmouth for the Nationals. The Falmouth fleet at the time were "the boats to beat". Although we were last on every race (the committee boat started following us to collect the marks as we went round), we had a fantastic time and became "one of the family". We also learned a lot of lessons both in terms of boat handling whilst racing, and boat limitations - 4 people living on a GK24 for 9 days whilst trying to race competitively ! The foredeck hand was not impressed as the wet kite repeatedly landed on her bunk, and I spent months trying to get the sodden remains of a packet of cornflakes off the sides of the lockers under the front bunks.  Despite our abysmal results, we came away with the trophy for best visiting boat (we were the only visiting boat !) and renewed enthusiasm for our evening racing in Plymouth. Our results back home improved noticeably. Over the next few years, we continued racing her hard on our evening series and doing the annual jaunt to Falmouth, and latterly to Dartmouth for the Nationals. The culmination was one year at Dartmouth where we had over 20 GK24s on the water. Back in Plymouth, there were around 15 GK24s, and I was on a mission to get a local class running. We never made it past 5 on the water racing, as many boats were used only for cruising - a testament to the versatility of the design.  These days, I take life a lot slower, and Gate Krasher IV has a much easier time. We occasionally turn out for some evening racing - IF the sun is out. We use her some weekends as a base for picnics, and a quiet sail around Plymouth Sound. People often ask me why I don't sell her and buy something more 'cruisy'. However, i've yet to find a boat that I like the look of, that I can handle as easily or is as responsive, yet can still punch through a heavy sea in a blow and not feel like she's going to fall apart at any time. Gate Krasher IV has had many modifications over the years, mostly for racing purposes. In common with the Falmouth GK24s, when she was converted to fractional rig, her previous owner added a set of running backstays, and some meaty modifications to her chainplate supports. The runners are attached to a 16:1 pulley purchase, and can bend the rig a considerable amount. We stopped short of adding winches, after one of the Falmouth GKs, "Foyled Again", winched his runners on through a similar purchase and promptly exploded the base of the mast through the keelstep. One of the benefits of the runners is that Gate Krasher IV's spreaders are not as swept back as many fractional boats as the runners help with the rig bend. This gives a much better shape in the main when running. Gate Krasher's cockpit is worked using a single pair of winches, mounted on the coachroof, in the location of the original halyard winches. This arrangement works quite well, with the spinnaker sheets being led through a large pair of ratchet blocks aft and the genoa sheets running through turning blocks which have built in jammers. This allows the winch to be freed up once the sail is in. Also, being fractional, the loading on the spinnaker sheet is usually controllable through a ratchet block without needing the winch. For propulsion, she's fitted with a Beta 10 hp which replaced the original Volvo MD5A and it's coupled to the original Volvo saildrive. This is a quiet combination. Unfortunately, her interior has seen better days. When we were racing her hard, we weren't too bothered about the state of the inside, and it shows ! However, the first owners of the boat had coachbuilt the joinery etc, and when she was surveyed for her 25 year insurance survey, the surveyor stated that the heavily built bunkbases had considerably strengthened the boat - and weighed it down.....perhaps that explains why we never won a Nationals ! Hopefully over the next few years we can get her back to something resembling her former glory. |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 July 2007 ) |
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