This post includes a great video, created by Tarquin Wildridge, welcoming the OGA fleet into Ramsgate as they gather to depart on the OGA60 Round Britain Cruise, 2023. This year is the 60th Anniversary of the OGA. A small group of boats visited Sandwich on Saturday/Sunday.
First to arrive into Ramsgate, from the Netherlands on Wednesday, was ‘Recipe’, pictured in our cover image against the quay at Sandwich. She’s a 25’ Norfolk Smuggler skippered by Ricks Meppelder. ‘Mutual Friend’, a 36’ Essex smack, built 1983, skippered by Paul Blyth sailed down from Tollesbury to join the fleet on Thursday, along with 49’ ferro gaff ketch, ‘Barbarossa’ with skipper and crew Rob and Sue Hart arriving from Benfleet.
‘Onward of Ito’, classic gaff cutter built 1923 and celebrating her 100th birthday this year is skippered by Martin Goodrich and arrived from Greenwich on Friday along with OGA President, Mike Beckett in ‘Bonita’, a gaff yawl built 1898, who set off at 0530 from the Swale with a pleasant SW breeze to reach Ramsgate by midday.
Other boats in the fleet gathering on Saturday included ‘Lahloo’, Cornish Crabber 26, skippered by Richard Bailey, who sailed from West Mersea, ‘Agapanthus’, Heard 28 skippered by Leslie Aldous, ‘Cygnet of London’, another gaff-rigged yawl built 1906, skippered by Simon Harding and last but by no means least, ‘Hilda’, the 50’ ex-lifeboat skippered by Ron Bos, has crossed from the Netherlands to join the fleet.
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