This year’s Regatta is Skandia’s eighth in succession as the title sponsor. Cowes Combined Clubs (CCC) anticipate that around 950 boats will compete at the 2002 event. This is a significant increase on the year 2000 which is more directly comparable than with 2001 when there was a Fastnet race and the America’s Cup Jubilee taking place.
Regatta dates – the future
Cowes Week is traditionally held during the week beginning on the first Saturday after the last Tuesday in July. In most years this works well and ensures that everyone can work out when to take holidays and allows other regatta organisers to plan ahead. However, there are a few years when the tides make the traditional dates virtually unworkable, especially if we are unlucky enough to have light winds at the same time. One only has to look back to 1997 to see the devastating effect that big spring tides and light winds can have on Cowes Week racing.
The traditional dates for 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008 all fall within relatively weak tides and will therefore remain as previously published as:
2002 – 3 to 10 August
2003 – 2 to 9 August
2005 – 30 July to 6 August
2006 – 29 July to 5 August
2008 – 2 to 9 August
However, in both 2004 and 2007 the traditional dates fall in the middle of bigger than usual spring tides and after much consideration, the CCC Committee has decided to move Cowes Week in both these years by one week. The dates in these two years will therefore be:
2004 – 7 to 14 August
2007 – 4 to 11 August
It is appreciated that the dates of Cowes Week affect a great many people and CCC sincerely hopes that all concerned will understand the reasons for these changes and be able to move their own events appropriately if necessary.
Skandia Life Cowes Week supports IRM
Why is it that CCC is not going down the compulsion route with IRM in the same way as Ford Cork Week?
Cork Week has few major, historic trophies and it is therefore relatively easy for the organisers to tell owners which class they’re going into. Skandia Life Cowes Week, on the other hand, has a vast number of prestigious trophies to race for and many owners wish to compete partly to get their name engraved on these.
This means that in Skandia Life Cowes Week the choice of class for handicap owners has to allow the owners to opt for racing that allows them to compete for these trophies. Until IRM has a sufficient momentum of its own, the Clubs who own the trophies are generally unwilling to reallocate said trophies to what is currently a small and limited class, however wonderful the boats are.
So what is CCC doing to help IRM achieve the necessary critical mass?
This year CCC is offering dual-scoring in the appropriate handicap classes. This means that for those with an IRM certificate, owners can opt to have results under both IRM and IRC which enables them to get IRM results whilst still racing for the major trophies.
Windward/Leeward racing
After the collapse of the Admiral’s Cup in 2001, the Farr 40 Association asked CCC if they would put on some Windward/Leeward racing for them, as a prelude to their World Championships shortly after Skandia Life Cowes Week. CCC looked at the added complications and decided that for a small fleet they could cope with this on a one-off basis.
Since then, several classes have asked if they too could have a similar type of racing for part of the Week and the CCC Committee looked at the request very carefully.
After thorough deliberation, it was decided that to offer Windward/Leeward racing to a few classes would effectively restrict the course options for the majority of the fleet to an unacceptable level. The only realistic way that it
could happen would be to have Windward/Leeward courses outside the Solent, either to the east of the Forts or in Christchurch Bay. The organisers do not believe that many crews would wish to have to motor for several hours before and after racing each day and the last thing CCC want to do is to split the fleet so that some boats are forced to berth away from Cowes. It was therefore reluctantly decided that this option is therefore not viable.
New classes at Skandia Life Cowes Week 2002
New classes include:
The exciting K6, a planing 6-metre ballasted keelboat will be having its own one-design class results in 2002 after the class’s Cowes Week in 2001 when a few from this new class raced with the Sportsboat Handicap Class.
The Bull 7000 Class is using the Week as its European Championship. This Class will race within the overall Sportboat Handicap fleet and will have results for both Sportsboat and its own Class.
Other developing classes such as the Ker 11.3, Prima 38s and the like will have the option of getting one-design results as well as IRC Handicap results.
Year-round website
Skandia Life Cowes Week’s official website www.cowesweek.co.uk is live all year-round with the latest news and is now also compatible with both PC and Apple Mac.
The site provides a great deal of useful information for this year’s regatta. You can go online and register your email address on the site. This means that whenever the site has a major new item added or changed, you will get an automated email to tell you of the changes.
The Notice of Race and Entry forms will be available in late March.
For more details contact:
Peta Stuart-Hunt
Public Relations Officer
Skandia Life Cowes Week
Tel: + 44 (0) 1590 679621
Fax: + 44 (0) 1590 688320
Mob: + 44 (0) 7711 477707
Email: peta.prworks@virgin.net
Skandia Life
Tim Sewell
Project Manager
Skandia Life Cowes Week
Tel: +44(0)23 80 726472
Fax: +44(0)23 80 481240
Email: tim.sewell@skandia.co.uk
www.cowesweek.co.uk