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Elan magazine
A Week at the Races: Cowes races call to sailors all over the world
By Steven Sellers Cowes Week is yachting’s birthday party. It’s the grand regatta of Cowes, England, a coastal hamlet named for the fortifications (“cowes”) ordered by Henry VIII to repel French naval invasions. The cowes still stand, but the only invasions come from the world’s yachtsmen—and they’re all invited to the celebration. The Solent, a tumultuous strait in the English Channel, brings them to Cowes. Once a modest river valley, the Solent could be waded in Roman times, but floods in the 14th century cleaved the south coast of England from the Isle of Wight, forming a natural haven for sailing. Conceived in 1815 by Britain’s Royal Yacht Squadron, the all-inclusive yacht races at Cowes have flourished since 1826. Size doesn’t matter at Cowes. In fact, Skandia Cowes Week (now the event’s formal name) depends upon having the broadest fleet possible. Thirty-five vessel classes—from 14-meter behemoths with crews of 30 to sprightly squibs with crews of two—mingle on the emerald waters of the Solent for nine glorious days each August. Professional skippers sail the same waters as their amateur counterparts, competing for trophies and joining a promenade that, for many, is the holy grail of yachting. Christopher Moore of Chester is a Cowes Week veteran. His Cowes Week adventures began in 1995, and he’s raced every year since, usually in highly competitive J-class boats. He’s raced his own boats in past years, but last summer Moore rented a 7-meter Sonar, crewed by his teenage son, Lucien, Christopher’s brother, David, and his nephew, Philip. Christopher doubted his team’s chances once he saw the rental boat was named Biscuit. “The private boats were going twice our speed, but we were leading the rental fleet,” Moore says with a smile and a melodic French accent. “I started sailing at the age of five,” Moore says. “We had a summer house in France on the water. I’ve always sailed, I was a sailing instructor, and I raced boats with my father.” Moore warns that the Solent demands respect from every sailor. Tricky tides and unpredictable breezes have been known to run boats aground in an instant. Newcomers, he says, may want to consider crewing on a boat first. But if you have the skill, a sense of adventure, and the budget (Moore estimates his Cowes Week trip cost $5,000 last year), you may find yourself sailing on the Sound one month and slicing through the Solent the next. As a regatta, Cowes Week is a grand affair. The Solent tests not only sailors, but also race directors, who must plot new courses for every race, based on vessel class, weather, and tides. Thousands of boats are divided into two classes (a White Group for open day boats without cabins and a Black Group for bigger boats with cabins) for 35 daily starts at points all along the Solent. The result, by design, is a queue in which ocean-going Olympic yachts pay homage to smaller boats that have sailed at Cowes for 50 years: Dragons, Flying Fifteens, Redwings, Sea View Mermaids, and Solent Sunbeams. The regatta’s competitive spirit is carefully nurtured by race organizers through a handicapping system that levels the water line for every boat—an entry in a smaller class may be compared to that of a larger class as though the two had raced side-by-side. Last year, 1,000 boats and 8,500 sailors competed for the chance to hoist five major trophies, including the Queen’s Cup (first presented by Queen Victoria in 1897) and the New York Yacht Club Challenge Cup, the impetus of the famed America’s Cup races. Moore says he enjoys the competition, but he returns each year for the unique experience Cowes Week provides. “It’s the size,” he says. “It’s overwhelming. It’s Newport times 100. The only place I’ve seen that’s comparable is San Francisco Bay.” Jack Orr of Clinton sailed at Cowes last summer on the red-hulled Snow Lion, a large Class 1 yacht skippered by Larry Huntington of Greenwich. Orr has been a sail maker for more than 20 years, first in Old Saybrook and now with the Milford office of North Sails, the world’s largest supplier of sails. Like most of the crew, he paid his own way, even though the Snow Lion competed against European boats with professional crews and corporate sponsorships. Orr served as the upwind jib trimmer and the spinnaker trimmer downwind, ensuring that the sails were set for top speed. “We weren’t paid to be there,” says Orr. “We did it because it was such a great opportunity.” Cowes Week is different, Orr explains, because no other place can match the Solent. It’s where yachting was born. “To go to the birthplace of yachting, the Solent, where the first America’s Cup race was run, where you sail along the shore and you see castles and forts that date to the time of [Admiral] Nelson, is amazing,” says Orr. “Our modern tradition of American and English sailing, with its beginnings in the Elizabethan period, started there.”
The Cowes Week birthday party is open to everyone—and they come in droves. “It’s not just sailors,” Orr notes. “People come from all over the south of England. It’s a huge party for a week. It’s very well run and it’s really fun.” An estimated 100,000 spectators line the shores of Cowes and Southampton each year, many of them on holiday at the Isle of Wight. They are drawn by the spectacle of spinnakers afloat, but they also come for the Cowes Week barbecues, concerts, pubs, parades, champagne stations, gala balls, air shows, beer tents, and fireworks. Organizers work hard to ensure that Cowes Week lives up to its reputation in every respect, but the focus always returns to the water. There are dedicated FM radio and cable TV stations, streaming video updates, live reports by commentators in pontoon boats, video feeds in festival venues, and a nightly radio service that recaps the races all night long. Every race is important at Cowes Week because the thousands of personal experiences on the water complement each other, making the regatta greater than the sum of its parts. “It starts with the grass-roots local guy in England all the way up to the top racing boats in the world with professional crews,” says Orr. “That’s what makes it a great event.” Whatever the sailor’s skill or the size of his boat, Cowes Week competitors share a common experience—one that keeps them coming back. “You have a good day’s work, you’re in the sun, on the water, in the fresh air,” says Moore. “Then you come home, you talk about the day, and you relax. It’s very pleasant and social. You’re there for nine days and you lose any notion of time.” This year’s edition of Skandia Cowes Week will be held Aug. 2 through 9. For more information, visit www.skandiacowesweek.co.uk.
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