RORC East Coast Race and EAORA Week
by Paul Wood 8 Jul 2024 19:25 BST
EAORA East Anglian Week © Claire Scott
The start of the biannual East Anglian Week in southern Holland was thrown into turmoil with strong winds in the RORC feeder race from Harwich to Ostend.
The weather forecast had predicted a possible force 9 for a while, therefore a few yachts who had entered decided against competing. Two Belgium yachts had sailed over to Harwich ready for the start, but they choose to cruise back and delay their departure back to Ostend to miss the bulk of the bad weather.
The committee boat Windrunner with chairman and race officer onboard sailed over on the Friday in 30 knot winds. Windrunner suffered engine failure on the edge of the shipping lanes. ETA in Ostend was about 2300 hours, the Search and Rescue RIB Brandaris from Nieuwport was called upon who safely towed the committee boat into Ostend.
Congratulations to Paul Scott in his bulletproof Sigma 38 for winning overall with a shredded leach on the mainsail. Paul has been blessed with a good regular team for many years now. 2nd was Arcadia of Harwich the Arcona 400 owned by Mark & Penelope Gillett. The only two boats who raced across.
On Sunday the course was set just off of Ostend for the Medway Yacht Clubs Cannonball race to Breskens. An interesting start as the buoy in the sailing instructions wasn't on station... therefore with the committee boat at anchor and a church steeple due east on the shore it was good enough to start a race. But steer well clear of the pin end!
Congratulations to Mark Lyons in his Dehler 34 Martinique for and overall and class win. Second to Spirit, third to Brillig.