Suzanne and Alan share details of the upcoming season of yachting regattas. Ed
The Royal Ocean Racing Club’s UK domestic season starts with the Easter Challenge, taking place on the Solent over the Bank Holiday weekend of 25-27th March.
The Easter Challenge
For many crews, the Easter Challenge marks a key date in their diary, by which time their boat must be re-commissioned and back in the water ready for the new sailing season.
To help crews get up to speed again as quickly as possible, particularly those looking to enter this year’s Brewin Dolphin Commodores’ Cup, the RORC has set up the Easter Challenge as a start of season training regatta.
Debut for Fast 40+ class
This year the Fast 40+ class makes its debut en masse at the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Easter Challenge.
Between eight and ten Fast 40+s will be competing and with the fleet expected to grow to 14 this summer, pundits are observing that this class represents the most competitive home-grown handicap inshore keelboat racing the UK has seen since the heyday of the Admiral’s Cup.
RORC Season’s Points Championship
April sees the start of the domestic RORC Season’s Points Championship with the opening offshore race, the Cervantes Trophy from Cowes to Le Havre on the 30th April.
The Cervantes is followed, in this area, by the De Guingand Bowl which is a coastal race around marks in the Channel on 14th May. The Cervantes Trophy and De Guingand Bowl races will form part of the British team selection trials for the Brewin Dolphin Commodores’ Cup in July.
May will see the Myth of Malham race on the 28th; a race from Cowes, around the Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth and back to Cowes. This replicates the first part of a typical Rolex Fastnet Race and is very popular.
June has the RORC Morgan Cup Race to Dieppe.
Round the Island Race
The Island Sailing Club, the organisers of the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race, is delighted to welcome back last year’s Gold Roman Bowl winner, Giovanni Belgrano and Whooper.
Giovanni comments that he is bringing the same group of friends who are eager for another lap of the Isle of Wight, back for the RTI race on Saturday, 2nd July.
Also back on the start line is Alex Thomson skippering the 2015 IMOCA 60 Hugo Boss and to date there are 600+ other entries. As last year, the RTI Race forms part of the Isle of Wight’s Festival of the Sea.
Cowes Classics Week
Charles Stanley Cowes Classics Week takes place 11-15 July with support from Haines Boatyard hosting a competitors’ reception and Race Day prizes and local art gallery -Kendalls Fine Art – where another competitors’ Reception is held.
Organised by the Royal London YC this regatta for Classic Boats is very popular and once again has chosen to support the IW Youth Trust as its charity.
Panerai Regatta
The 2016 Panerai Regatta takes place from 16th – 23rd July. Organisers are anticipating a high entry again with yachts from around the globe looking to race in the Solent.
The racing is once again being organised by Royal Yacht Squadron with a six race series plus a stand-alone Around the Island Race sponsored by EFG International on Monday 18th July, following the original clockwise course of the first America’s Cup.
The Brewin Dolphin Commodores’ Cup
Brewin Dolphin is continuing its sponsorship of the RORC biennial flagship event for national three boat teams with amateur crews- The Brewin Dolphin Commodores’ Cup.
For 2016 The Brewin Dolphin Commodores’ Cup will take place out of Cowes between the
3rd and 30th July. Something of a surprise was the first team officially to enter the 2016 event being not one of the regulars – France, Ireland or the UK – but Israel. Alongside judo, sailing is Israel’s top Olympic sport.
Spearheading the Israeli campaign is British sailor Richard Loftus, well known for campaigning his Swan 65, Desperado.
Cowes Week
Cowes Week, this year without a title sponsor, is at the beginning of August (6th-13th). Cowes Week Limited, organisers of Cowes Week, one of the world’s best-known sailing regattas and a highlight of the British sporting summer, are delighted to announce that they will continue their youth initiative which offers discounted entry fees to boats with crews of under 25 year olds.
Ile d’Ouessant Race
Following Cowes Week is the new Ile d’Ouessant Race from Cowes to St Malo via the Wolf Rock and around Ushant on the north-west corner of France.
This 400nm race has already attracted much interest and looks likely to become a regular fixture in the RORC Calendar in a non-Fastnet year.
Cowes to Santander
The Royal Yacht Squadron, in association with The Real Club Marítimo de Santander and the Royal Ocean Racing Club, is to host a race from Cowes to Santander, Spain starting from the Royal Yacht Squadron’s line on 15th August 2016.
This race will take the fleet some 520 nautical miles direct from Cowes to Santander in northern Spain.
Cherbourg Race
The beginning of September sees the culmination of a very busy season for the RORC with the final offshore – the Cherbourg Race – on 2nd September; an overnight sprint from Cowes to Cherbourg.
Etchells World Championship
The Etchells World Championship is to be held in Cowes in September 2016 and over 60 boats from 11 countries are expected.
Many former Etchells World Champions will compete including John Bertrand winner of the America’s Cup for Australia in 1983. Eddie Warden Owen, Ossie Stewart and Adrian Friend have bought an Etchell to campaign for the 2016 World Championships which will take place from the 1st- 11th September.
As many people know, a fire on the Isle of Wight on 25 January had a major impact on the Cowes Etchells Fleet. Fleet spokesman and 2016 Etchells World Championship regatta chairman, David Franks said,
“Approximately 14 Etchells appear to have been destroyed in the fire but the Cowes Etchells Fleet will rise again in time for our first Regatta in April.”
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