Cowes Week

Cowes Week is one of the longest-running regular regattas in the world. With 40 daily races, up to 1,000 boats, and 8,000 competitors ranging from Olympic and world class professionals to weekend sailors, it is the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world. Having started in 1826, the event is held on the Solent (the area of water between southern England and the Isle of Wight made tricky by strong double tides), and is run by Cowes Week Limited in the small town of Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

Description

Cowes Week is held at the beginning of August, set after Glorious Goodwood in the social calendar, which in most years means from the first Saturday after the last Tuesday in July, until the following Saturday. It is occasionally moved to another week if the state of the tides in the normal week is unfavourable or, as in 2012, to avoid a clash with the Olympic Games. The regatta is famous for its fireworks on the final Friday.

Typically Cowes Week up to forty starts a day for classes of cruiser-racers, one designs and keelboats; up to a thousand boats and 8,000 competitors take part. During this time the Solent, which is a busy commercial waterway, is filled with boats of all classes and is particularly colourful due to the spinnakers (the large rounded sail hoisted at the front of a yacht when running downwind). The different classes of boats are split into either White Group (dayboats) and Black Group (larger boats with cabins).

Cowes

Coordinates: 50°45′34″N 1°18′01″W / 50.7595°N 1.3002°W / 50.7595; -1.3002

Cowes (/kaʊz/;) is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina, facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east bank. The two towns are linked by the Cowes Floating Bridge, a chain ferry.

The population was 9,663 in the 2001 census, a figure that doubles during the regatta in early August. The population at the 2011 Census was 10,405.

Leland's 19th century verses described the towns poetically as "The two great Cowes that in loud thunder roar, This on the eastern, that the western shore".

Cowes has been seen as a home for international yacht racing since the founding of the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1815. The town gives its name to the world's oldest regular regatta, Cowes Week, which occurs annually in the first week of August. Later on in the summer, powerboat races are held.

Much of the town's architecture is still heavily influenced by the style of ornate building which Prince Albert popularised.