Warrior EAORA top scoring boat in the North Sea Race
by Paul Wood 4 Jun 14:21 BST
Warrior during the EAORA North Sea Race © Simon Farren
Simon Farren's A40 Warrior, co-skippered by Ben Peter, won class two in ther RORC North Sea Race - so winning the Charlie Mills Memorial Trophy for the highest placed EAORA boat in the race.
One of Simon's big tactical calls was going north at the final gate, where Warrior gained massively. Simon can recall the race of 2024 where the south route gave an advantage, but not this year. Simon was impressed with his new set of Ultimate sails.
On corrected time William Sunnucks from Haven Ports YC with Sweet Caroline was second of the EAORA entrants and third was Mercury, Ross Eldred from Medway YC.
The 157-mile race was held in a variety of conditions from strong winds at the start to light airs later. Richard Matthews has been a champion of the North Sea Race for decades and his Carkeek 52 Oystercatcher XXXV took line honours with an elapsed time of 18 hours 33 minutes and 55 seconds.
EAORA had eight boats racing, all collecting qualifying miles for their Fastnet campaigns. Full results at www.eaora.org.uk/results/2025-rorc-north-sea-race
The Charlie Mills trophy was presented to EAORA in 2007 by the family of this colourful character from Crouch YC who was a North Sea Race regular.
Simon joins an illustrious list of previous winners of the trophy including Richard Matthews with Oystercatcher, the late Piet Vroon with Tonnerre de Breskens, Iain Kirkpatrick with Fatjax and Paul Scott with Spirit.