OGA Heineken Rally 1974 (by Tim Beckett)

Today Bonita has had a rest day in Amsterdam. While she is there helping the Netherlands branch of the OGA celebrate their 10th anniversary her arrival reminds me of the OGA's first formal event held in Holland which was the Heineken Rally of 1974 - a year that is probably better remembered for Abba winning the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo.

I'm not sure whose idea the Heineken Rally was but Ian Hunter-Edmond, a founding member of the OGA and East Coast Area secretary at the time, did a magnificent job of organising it. The rally was memorably and most generously sponsored by Heineken who provided participating boats with almost constant supplies of beer and a lot of flags - amazing!


Bonita attended the rally in company with our good friend Jan Bart Pot's Dreva, unfortunately Bart could not make the event at the last minute due to work commitments so he most trustingly allowed Mike to skipper Dreva for the whole trip. The photo on the left shows Dreva and Bonita in Enkhuisen moored outside the Bristol Channel pilot cutter Marguerita T.

40 years ago we took far fewer photos than today and those photos we did take don't seem to have been very good, probably because one tended not to take a good camera on a trip aboard an old boat. Anyway here is a photo of me at the helm of Bonita as we sailed down the Blackwater, on the right of the photo is my father Allan holding his 8mm cine camera while on the left of the photo my old college friend Justin Besley is taking it easy. The photo was taken by my sister Sian.

I have had the film that Allan took of the crossing digitised and here it is below. The fleet departed for Holland from the Blackwater the day after the East Coast Race, we left around mid-day with a pleasant westerly Force 3-4 which gradually strengthened through the night so that by the time we were approaching Ijmuiden the next morning we had a Force 6-7 behind us. In those days before satellite navigation making the landfall in those conditions could be a challenge and I remember that one boat did miss the entrance to the harbour ending up on the beach. In the film the little Dutch boat running in great style was called Saskia van Ryn, built of steel she was only a couple of years old at the time.

Finally to demonstrate that it wasn't just Abba that had the hair in those days here is a photo taken in Dreva's cockpit. Mike is at the back behind our mother Ida, I am in the cap and this blog's IT guru Trevor is in front.

Racing in heavy weather

Taking in a reef

Saturday morning bought strong and blustery SW winds. About sixty gaffers set out bravely to race in the Solent and presented a fine sight. There were several press boats in attendance and they must have got some excellent pictures. This photo was taken by Sam Scott. Sam, Vicky and Ant followed the fleet in a launch. In the picture we are in the process of taking in yet another reef in the mainsail.

Everyone had a wet and exciting sail. Unfortunately there was some damage and a few collisions. At least two boats became entangled with the race marks while another became entangled with fishing gear laid next to one of the marks. A fair number of boats retired due to the stress of weather.

Bonita had D, Tim and John helping out. We had a somewhat wet sail with a fair bit of water flowing over the deck which washed the scrubbing brush overboard. Apart from that mishap Bonita took it well. There were some dramatic photos taken of her leaping from wave to wave such as this posted on Facebook by Nic Compton. We hope to post some more race photos in this blog in due course.

After everyone had got back safely there was a prize-giving in the marina. Bonita came around the middle of the field as she often seems to. Of the RBC boats, Witch and Annabel J both did well winning prizes. The round Britain boats all are carrying a lot of extra gear and may have grown a bit of weed in the last four months, so any success against the local racers is impressive.

The video shows replica whaling boat Molly, one of the few open boats to complete the course. At the end of the upwind leg we overtook her while her crew had a lengthy break to bail her out but once she was emptied they resumed the race and stormed by us in fine, if precarious, form.

It looks as though tomorrow may be quite windy as well, but we plan to head back to the Swale soon.

East Coast Old Gaffers Race

57 ft Pioneer - local Smack built in 1864, relaunched 2003

The 50th ECOG Race started in very light winds although stronger breezes were forecast for later. About seventy boats left the start line near Brightlingsea, making a fine sight as they made their way down the Colne. It was a difficult race for the race organisers and the conditions required two changes of course after the initial announcement. Several boats retired due to running aground or slow progress. The rest of the fleet made sedate progress with all light weather sails on display.

About half way around there was a lot of congestion around a buoy off the old nuclear power station at Bradwell and we managed to slip ahead of several boats. This cleverness didn't pay off however as, after rounding the buoy, we lost the wind while tacking between two smacks and collided with one of them. The boats were moving quite slowly: there was no damage whatever to the old smack and only a fairly minor scrape along Bonita's starboard rail. As we had to use the engine to extricate ourselves from the situation and to avoid further damage, we retired from the race at that point and sailed back to Brightlingsea. See our track below (click for detail).

The crew were a bit unsettled by this encounter and we were disappointed not to complete the race. We talked over what went wrong. I think that once we had lost way on the boat there was nothing we could have done to avoid a collision. I felt the helmsman on the smack could have easily prevented it with a minor course change, but the view from his deck may well have been different. Smacks are big unwieldy things that are sailed very competitively and I suppose we should have kept further away from them in a congested and confused situation.

So a bit of a frustrating day for us. However later there was a prize giving ashore and hospitality in the Colne Yacht Club with music well into the night.