EAORA Buckley Goblets 2025 at West Mersea Yacht Club - the last dash to Ostend
by Paul Wood 22 Sep 2025 20:32 BST
12 September 2025
Prizes - EAORA Buckley Goblets © Paul Wood
The final event of the EAORA season was West Mersea YC's Buckley Goblets race on September 12. The trophy - a pair of crystal goblets - was presented to WMYC in 1968 by J.C. Buckley.
This end of season dash from West Mersea to Ostend has always been as East Coast favourite - despite its reputation for attracting equinoctial gales. This year was no exception, delivering strong winds, a sleigh ride and sodden sailors arriving in Ostend buzzing with a rush of adrenaline, and looking for an all-night bar.
The race started at the Nass Beacon at the entrance to Mersea Quarters on a sunny morning, with clear blue skies and about 18 knots from the southwest. It looked like July but there was an autumnal nip in the air.
Not much later boats had well over 30 knots on the beam for more than an hour, hit by squall after squall.
Back in 1993 Richard Matthews set a course record with his Twelve Metre Crusader at 11 hours 38 minutes. The following year in a north westerly gale Malcolm Struth with Thrust, a Prism 28, raced across in 8 hours, 6 minutes 27 seconds. (It's said that nobody moved from behind the helmsman and the spinnaker wasn't dropped until inside Ostend harbour.)
In 2019 in Oystercatcher XXXIII, a Ker 51, cut this to 6 hours, 9 minutes, 5 seconds. Last year with Oystercatcher XXXV, a Carkeek 52, Richard raced across in 8 hours and 2 minutes.
This time the first two boats arrived in the still impressive time of nine and a half hours, only seconds apart. Line honours went to Colne YC's Warrior A40 RC 2.48, owned by Simon Farren. Close behind came William Sunnucks of Haven Ports YC in Grand Soleil 46.3 Sweet Caroline - the overall and class one winner once ratings came into play.
They were followed at just under eleven hours by Haven Ports YC's Paul Scott with Sigma 38 Spirit and then Jenny and Will Taylor-Jones from Royal Harwich YC with the evergreen Sparkman and Stevens classic Sunstone.
All boats were greeted in Ostend by an EAORA welcoming committee including race officer Andy Wise and chairman Paul Wood.
William Sunnucks was delighted with Sweet Caroline's win. He has been campaigning the cruiser racer for the last three years after taking a rest from Tornado catamaran racing at international level.
Simon Farren's Warrior was second overall and in class one, about 8 minutes behind on corrected time, confirming Simon as EAORA's overall winner for 2025.
Spirit won class two both in the Buckley Goblets and overall. Sunstone won class three in the final race, and was runner up to Magic Moments for the season overall.
Full details can be found at www.eaora.org.uk