Nineteen seventy-four saw the humble beginnings in the United States of the GP phenomenon which had long been a mainstay on the Canadian Boating Federation circuit in and around Valleyfield, Quebec. The class received its first major league shot in the arm here at the 1977 Spirit of Detroit Regatta and entered its first year of organized promotion in 1978. As a group, the GP participants seem agreed upon the direction in which they are headed but sometimes disagree on the methods of attaining the common goal. Disappointingly, these disagreements are not always confined to their proper place behind closed doors. Necessarily, the transition from an amateur endeavor to a professional pursuit involves growth pains.
Mistakes can and do occur.
One of these happened at the 1980 Spirit of Detroit event when Peter Knight s New Zealand-based Gone Heavy was barred from competition because of a problem concerning the minimum hull length requirement. Hopefully, this sort of incident will become less frequent as the Grand Prix people continue to put their administrative house in better order. The President s Cup on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., opened the 1980 campaign the first weekend in June. For the second year in a row, the event was cut short by high winds. Kropfeld s victory in the 24-foot, Jon Staudacher creation made him the seventh driver to notch a Grand Prix win in the previous eight GP races.