Cowes Week

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 - Sat, 7 Aug 2010

Since 1826 Cowes Week has played a key part in the British sporting summer calendar and is one of the UK's longest running and most successful sporting events. It now stages up to 40 daily races for over 1,000 boats and is the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world.

The 8,500 competitors range from Olympic and world class professionals to weekend sailors. In excess of 100,000 spectators come to watch the sailing, enjoy the parties and live entertainment, and to experience the atmosphere.

There has been a considerable increase in entrants for the competitive one design racing, e.g. the Portsmouth Victory Class, the third biggest one design fleet this year, which has 22 boats competing. Class Captain Kim Taylor said, “We expected a fall off from last year's 75th anniversary event but a ten per cent increase this year is further confirmation of the resurgence of the Class."

The US team BMW ORACLE Racing, the current holders of the America's Cup, will race the British team TEAMORIGIN this year for the 1851 Cup, a new trophy named after the year the former began. The race will follow the original 1851 course clockwise around the Isle of Wight. The skipper and helmsman of TEAMORIGIN, Triple Olympic Gold Medallist Ben Ainslie, said, "We have a busy season in 2010 but The 1851 Cup will surely be the jewel in the crown for us."