The annual ECYD Autumn rally was held on Saturday 30 September, with the usual Passage race the previous day. As normal the rally was held in the general area around Bradwell although this year the start was off Brightlingsea and the rally was mainly in or around (and sometimes on!) Buxley Sands which was a departure from recent years and for me at least a new area. 

The previous club boat Pegasus joins the rally

As normal there were a number of exercise which could be undertaken for bonus miles the first of these was to collect a small sample of sand from Buxley Sands.

Mission accomplished the crew of Freyja get their dingy back on board.

The second exercise involved charting the depth between Wallet Spitway bouy and Swin Spitway Bouy using a lead line. This proved a bit of a knotty problem for those of us without a lead line and our skipper ending up swinging the spanners.

The third exercise required sailing a circle round Swallotail Sands leaving Swalltail, North Swallowtail and South Buxley inside the circle.

The Rally dinner held as usual at Bradwell.

A close up of the Rally Trophies plus lead line.

The winning Skippers from left to right
      Philip Nixon (Indigo) won the Brickbat Trophy first 42.5 miles,
      Jean Rehill (Freyja) won the Swinstar tankard for the first charter boat 37.6 miles,
      Paul Davies (Pegasus) the Commodores Cup winner of the Passage race and
      Peter Jones (Image) was the first recipient of a new prize, the Small Cruiser trophy