EAORA season concludes with West Mersea Yacht Club Buckley Goblets

The 2012 EAORA season concluded on Friday 7th September with West Mersea Yacht Club's 86 mile Buckley Goblets race to Ostend.

This year's championship came down to a particularly close finish with merely 7 points separating Tony & Chuffy Merewether's Sun Fast 3200 Amazon and Stan Fenton & Nigel Cook's J/105 Fay-J before the race - a gap so slender after discards that whichever boat beat the other would take the overall title.

Brilliant sunshine and a 10 knot westerly breeze was the order of the day at the start by the Nass Beacon. All three classes started together and were away cleanly at the first attempt, heading out of the Blackwater with the ebb tide.

After passing the first mark, Colne Bar, yachts bore away to head NE towards the North East Gunfleet. The wind had a touch of south in it by this point forcing the asymmetric yacht to push out towards the Gunfleet sands in search of some hotter angles. The pressure dropped further as boats approached the end of this leg with all crews desperate to make it around the buoy before the flood tide began to run hard.

From the North East Gunfleet yachts headed east towards Long Sand Head and on to Ostend. The Class 1 yachts, Angus Bates' J/133 Assarain IV and Richard Matthews' ST37 Holding Pattern, were developing a lead by this point with Fay-J in pursuit. Amazon was sitting a little further back in 5th place but with all still to play for.

The breeze picked up and, combined with the hotter angle, boats were starting to cover ground rapidly. Yachts came up 20 degrees at Long Sand Head which was enough to force several teams into sail changes, with running kites making way for reaching kites and even code zeros in some cases. Fay-J, however, managed to hold their running kite and started to put some appreciable distance between themselves and the chasing pack, led by Tim & Tony Cross' J/92s Upstart.

Despite a forecast for the breeze to drop off towards the end of the day everybody finished in good time with Assarain IV first home in just over 11 hours and the smallest yacht Stephen Hendry's Sigma 33 Scorcher in under 14 hours.

Fay-J's excellent performance won them the Buckley Goblets and the championship overall, successfully defending the prize they won in 2011. Upstart was second on handicap with Amazon having to settle for third place and second overall for the year.

Buckley Goblets Results:

Overall
1st Fay-J (Stan Fenton & Nigel Cook)
2nd Upstart (Tim & Tony Cross)
3rd Amazon (Tony & Chuffy Merewether)

Class 1
1st Assarain IV (Angus Bates)

Class 2
1st Fay-J (Stan Fenton & Nigel Cook)

Class 3
1st Cosmic Dancer III (Russell Walker)

EAORA 2012 Championship:

Overall
1st Fay-J (Stan Fenton & Nigel Cook)
2nd Amazon (Tony & Chuffy Merewether)
3rd Upstart (Tim & Tony Cross)

Class 1
1st Inn Spirit (Alan Bartlett)

Class 2
1st Fay-J (Stan Fenton & Nigel Cook)

Class 3
1st Scorcher (Stephen Hendry)