EAORA Buckley Goblets to Ostend at West Mersea Yacht Club

The traditional EAORA season closer, West Mersea Yacht Club's Buckley Goblets to Ostend, took place on Friday 9th September. With several boats still capable of taking the overall spoils, the usual pre-race anticipation was palpable; heightened somewhat by semi-apocalyptic forecasts leading up to the race and potentially impinging on delivery trips home afterwards.

Yachts were greeted by a pleasant morning on the start line however, with a southwesterly breeze of approximately 10 knots. Class 3 were away shortly before 0800 and Russel Walker's Baltic 37 Cosmic Dancer stormed off down the Blackwater followed by the rest of the class, all with kites aloft.

Class 2 were the next off and was a purely 'sprit boat affair. Two J boats (Stan Fenton's J/105 Fay-J and Tim & Tony Cross' J/92s Upstart) were joined by Paul Brant's modified JOD35 Ninjod, racing in two-handed trim.

Class 1, away last, had by far the greatest rating spread, with 340 dots seperating Richard Matthew's Humphries 54 Oysterctcher XXVIII from Alan Bartlett's Humphries 11m Inn Spirit.

Oystercatcher soon tore through the fleet and was leading on the water by the first mark, Colne Bar. Yachts then bore away to take on a foul tide leg up the Wallet towards the NE Gunfleet. Oystercathcer had long since vanished over the horizon, but the combination of light breeze and deep angles was enabling the slower boats to keep the remaining Class 1 vessels at bay - Cosmic Dancer, Fay-J and Upstart were the next vessels around the mark, just ahead of Judy and Jason Payne-James' Dufour 45 Heartbeat IV.

After NE Gunfleet, most boats set reaching kites to head towards Long Sand Head. Heartbeat opted for a Code 0 and promptly took off in pursuit of Oystercatcher. Fay-J, already installed as Class 2 winners and with the potential to win overall, made particularly good progress along this leg.

At Long Sand Head the final leg began, a 58nm cross tide reach to the Binnenstroombank buoy off Ostend. This necessitated coming up slightly - most boats kept kites up, heading to the north of the rhumb line. Cosmic Dancer switched to white sails however and headed south, aiming to be the correct side of the forecast wind change into the south. The breeze increased about halfway across the North Sea to 16-18kts and most boats had to drop kites. Ninjod, who had fallen back on the downwind leg up to NE Gunfleet, now had a tank full of water ballast and a Code 0 flying - causing concern to several boats able to see the progress they were making on AIS.

The breeze fell back as yachts closed the Belgian coast and kites were hoisted again. Most yachts finished in the dark in a dying breeze, the challenge of picking the Binnenstroombank buoy's light against the brightly lit backdrop of Ostend proving a familiar challenge. The last vessel home, M Wheeler's Golden Fleece, finished at approximately 2300 BST.

Oystercatcher, who had finished in a little over 8 hours, won by around 30 minutes from Fay-J, whose result was sufficient for them to be crowned overall EAORA champions for 2011. Heartbeat made up the top three.

Oystercatcher and Fay-J were the victors of Classes 1 and 2 respectively in the race. Inn Spirit, coming home in 5th place, secured first place overall for the season in Class 1. Cosmic Dancer, who finished 6th overall, won Class 3 - both for the Goblets and the season overall.

Full results are available at www.eaora.org.uk