yacht clubs cowes

COWES CORINTHIAN YACHT CLUB

Tel Office: 01983 296333 

Email: [email protected]  

Club History

The Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club was founded in 1952 by Tiny Mitchell, a well-known east coast sailor who was commodore of the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club at Burnham.  Tiny spent much of his time at Cowes as he found the sailing in the Solent more suitable for his 6 metre yacht.  Tiny identified the plot of land now occupied by the Club as being suitable for the local sailors to build their own club and also allow them to store and launch their boats.  He acquired the site for £500 and the locals took over and did the rest.  Tiny was elected as the first commodore and held that position until he died in 1964.

Remarkably in 1953, only months after it was founded, the Club ran a Round the Island race for dinghies.  This caused huge controversy in the national, local and yachting press but fortunately the weather was almost perfect with light to moderate breeze allowing the 180 boat fleet to get round safely.  Remarkably the first two boats on elapsed time finished within one second of each other, Ian Proctor crewed by John Oakley and Cliff Norbury sailing the prototype Osprey just pipped Claude Nethercot in what went on to become the 505.  Uffa Fox trailed behind by 5 minutes in his 18 foot Jollyboat.

Since then the Club has gone on to run major championships including the Flying Fifteen Worlds, Sonar Worlds, two J24 Europeans and numerous national and regional championships for classes such as Etchells, Dragons, Flying Fifteens, Sonatas and Impalas. 

Club facilities have evolved considerably since the 1950s when there was limited access from a concrete hard standing using a hand operated davit plus mud berths for members boats.  Today there are first class dry sailing facilities and a modern marina for members’ boats.  This has been achieved by the hard work of the members which is the ethos of the Club.

A history of the first 55 years of the CCYC by Diana Cave is available from the Office.

Welcome to Cowes Classics Week

Racing at Cowes Classics Week is rich in the camaraderie and corinthian values that underpin our great sport.

Corinthian yacht racing at its best

The high quality of racing has made Cowes Classics Week the largest Classic Yacht Regatta in the world

Now firmly established after 15 years of growth

No other classic regatta offers such a wide-ranging gathering of racing classics, from keelboats to dayboats, cruisers and gaffers.

The greatest classics event?

Organised by the Royal London Yacht Club with the help of the leading local clubs, Cowes Classics Week is run by sailors for sailors.

Run by club volunteers for the sailors

Our loyal sponsors make this world class event possible. We are deeply grateful to all our supporters.

Our loyal sponsors make this world class event possible

From champagne to high teas to suppers, you'll enjoy roaring good fun in like-minded company with daily drinks receptions free to racers.

Great socials hosted by the supporting yacht clubs

Cowes classics week - 6 to 12 july 2024, with a classics day car show on sunday and yacht racing monday to friday.

Cowes Classics Week is all about racing traditional yachts on the water and enjoying fabulous social events ashore. Metre boats, Classic Racing Dayboats and Yachts, Old Gaffers and Spirit of Tradition Yachts race varied central Solent courses. Great value socials are held at different club venues including tea and cake at RLYC, daily prize givings plus a gala dinner and awards ceremony to celebrate the sailing.

'The' Classics Regatta

CCW is arguably the world's greatest classic regatta.

How to enter Cowes Classics Week 2024.

Official Notice Board

The online notice board includes essential downloads.

Who is Racing?

Entries for Cowes Classics Week are published online.

Crewfinder 2024

New for 2024 is a crew wanted/available WhatsApp group.

Regatta Clothing

A wide range of regatta clothing is available.

Event Charities

Our regatta charities are the NCI & Autism on the Water .

Fabulous Socials

Socials throughout the week with many free to racers.

Regatta News Service

Please register to receive regatta news by email.

Cowes Classics Day - Sunday 7 July 2024

Cowes Classics Day is the prelude to the regatta and is held on The Parade, Cowes Sunday 7th July

Classics on land and water

Cars, boats and planes

Bring your classic

Regatta news, cowes classics week 2024 - wash up newsletter.

CCW RACING NEWS - Splits, Signing-On & The Weyborne Estate Pursuit Race

CCW Socials - What's Happening Fri 12 July 2024

CCW Socials - What's Happening Thu 11 July 2024

CCW Socials - What's Happening Wed 10 July 2024

Provisional Handicaps Published

CCW Socials - What's Happening Tue 9 July 2024

CCW Socials - What's Happening Mon 8 July 2024

Cowes Classics Week Socials Update

Sailing Instructions Published

THE REGATTA ORGANISED BY SAILORS FOR SAILORS

Organised by the Royal London Yacht Club with the help of leading local clubs, Cowes Classics Week is run by sailors for sailors.

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Yachting World

• Digital Edition

Cowes Week: facts and figures

• Helen Dormer
• July 31, 2010

What was the first boat built in Cowes? When was the first race run?

For some interesting facts about the world’s biggest sailing regatta – now in its 184th year – read on…..

The first boat built in Cowes was the Rat O’Wight, commissioned by Elizabeth I in 1589.

Cowes Week is the largest regatta of its kind in the world. It organizes 40 races daily for over 1,000 boats and about 8,500 competitors.

Over 800 cannons are fired to mark the race starts and finishes during an average week.

The Royal Yacht Squadron was once the Yacht Club. It became the first ‘Royal’ Yacht Club in 1820 when one of its members, the Prince Regent, became King George IV.

The Yacht Club was established way back in 1815 in St James Street, London, but moved to Cowes Castle in 1825. It was renamed the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1833.

The first Cowes Week race started on Thursday 10 August 1826.

The America’s Cup took its origins from Cowes in 1851 when the New York based yacht ‘America’ won the race around the Isle of Wight. They won the Squadron’s 100 Guinnea Cup and gave the trophy its name.

Over 100,000 visitors make their way to Cowes each year for the regatta, outnumbering the town’s population of 9,663.

The youngest skipper at Cowes Week last year was 13 years old. (In 2008, it was 12 years.)

The biggest ever class was the Laser SB3s in 2007 with 98 boats.

If all the shoes worn by sailors during Cowes Week were put end to end, they would reach across the Solent from Cowes to Southampton – that’s almost 10 miles.

The most successful male skipper in the last decade is Rupert Mander (Men Behaving Badly) with 37 wins. The most successful female skipper is Liz Savage with 23 wins.

The Royal Yacht Squadron Castle is one of two ‘Cows’ or castles built by Henry VIII in the 1500s to protect the English from potential French or Spanish invasion. The other ‘Cow’ was in East Cowes, but no longer exists.

Royal Yacht Squadron members are allowed to fly the White Ensign of the Royal Navy rather than the Red Ensign, flown by the majority of UK registered vessels.

Minnesota Yacht Club Festival — which almost didn’t go on — draws fans from all over the Midwest

Minnesota yacht club festival.

Harriet Island was transformed into a house of music Friday and Saturday, attracting an estimated 60,000 enthusiastic rock ‘n roll fans.

“Alanis Morissette was amazing, Gwen Stefani was amazing,” exclaimed Dustin Thill, from drove from Green Bay. “Nice weather, we had no complaints.”  

The inaugural Minnesota Yacht Club Festival got some big kudos from music lovers.

Chopper 5 revealing the true size of the crowd — a sea of people.   “It’s overwhelming at first, but then you get used to it,” said Brooke Bline, from Sioux City, Iowa. “It’s really fun.”

From Gen-Z to millennials… some with their kids in tow, said they were having a great time.

“Chili Peppers and the Offspring,” smiled Amanda Welder, who drove from Bismarck, North Dakota. “We love concerts.”

But the festival almost didn’t go on. That’s because the Mississippi River rose to 20 feet in early July from heavy spring rains.

Much of the venue was underwater — the eighth-highest crest ever in St. Paul.

“I was very apprehensive that it was going to go on two weeks ago,” noted Trevor Olson from Andover. “The floodwaters were basically up to the bottom of the window. Actually, I came out and scouted last Friday as to where we were going to park and stuff.”

But that was then, and this is now.

The river dropped 11 feet in two weeks.

Festival goers say the turf in viewing areas was perfectly dry.

“This was really nice,” Welder said. “The lines were short, the bathrooms were organized, the crowd was good, everything was great.”

Bline brought alone her 5-year-old daughter Winter.

It was her very first concert.  

“We went to Lollapalooza one year, and so every year, she’s been asking to go,” Bline explained.

So… is all this like the state fair, or maybe Woodstock?

“I’d say a mixture of both because it’s really Minnesota nice,” she said. “Everybody’s very polite and cool. I don’t know, a good time so far.”

The city says hotels in downtown St. Paul were booked solid, and bars and restaurants were busy.

Already, organizers are taking about doing this next year.

StarTribune

Review: stefani, morissette spark a 'hella good' start to minnesota yacht club festival.

Experience matters. Even in rock 'n' roll — and especially at rock 'n' roll festivals.

After eight months of cutesy marketing and ample media coverage, St. Paul's Minnesota Yacht Club festival finally set sail Friday on Harriet Island Regional Park and got off to a remarkably swift and smooth start for an inaugural music fest. Credit for its success should largely go to its seasoned crew.

The music lineup in the fest is heavily loaded with old pros, and that proved not to be a bad thing Friday. Opening day's feminist rock trifecta of Alanis Morissette, Gwen Stefani and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts all skillfully strutted their stuff and showed the kids how to get it done. Never mind that there were very few kids among the crowd of 34,000 fans.

As much as those venerable performers deserve props, though, so do the operators of Minnesota's first new major music fest in more than a decade.

The event was launched by C3 Presents, the Texas-founded company behind Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and a couple dozen more festivals. These folks truly know the music fest business. About time Twin Cities fans benefitted from it.

Yacht Club's electronic wristbands and well-trained security staff made for smooth entrances. The stage production and sound were primo. The layout and flow between the two stages was well-organized. The music ran nearly nonstop and on time. And all the assorted VIP and "platinum" areas offered added comfort for those willing to pay at least a few hundred bucks more more than the relatively good-value $215-$255 general-admission two-day passes.

One noticeable snag: Food and drink lines got long as the crowd swelled in the late afternoon. Good thing many Minnesotans are too cheap to down $15 beers, or things could've been worse.

Seriously, though, the crowd on opening day was discernibly devoid of youth and almost exclusively middle-aged. MYC's lack of musical and generational diversity could be considered a shortcoming for what was billed as a hip, modern festival.

All those teens and college kids buying up throwback Chili Peppers and No Doubt T-shirts at Urban Outfitters and Kohl's are apparently more into cheap fashion ware than they are those bands' music, because none of them showed up to Yacht Club on opening day. If they had to move the festival to September for any reason, falling on a school day probably wouldn't hurt attendance much.

There's plenty to learn and apply to future years. In the meantime, here are some general takeaways from Friday's festival:

Women obviously ruled the day. It was a nostalgic lineup, sure, but this one trait about Friday's lineup could be seen as a hip, modern element. Aside from specifically targeted events like Lilith Fair, you never would have seen a festival with that many female singers atop the poster card in the 1990s, when Morissette and Stefani's old band No Doubt were in their heyday; certainly not in the '80s, when Jett dominated.

Losing the Black Crowes on the lineup due to illness was a real disappointment, but that just emphasized the women headliners all the more. What's more, the day also saw electrifying sets by a couple other women-led acts, too: Country rocker Morgan Wade and the punky hometown band who kicked off the day in hard-throttling style, Gully Boys.

Stefani seemed to be having the most fun. Her husband, Blake Shelton, may have wisely picked up on the strong feminine vibe when he showed up to sing one song with her — and only one! — their new single "Purple Irises," compared with the three she sang with him in town at his TC Summer Jam gig in 2022 . That bit seemed to delight her a lot, but so did the crowd's excited reaction throughout her 75-minute performance, from "Sunday Morning" at the start to the mid-set groover "Hella Good" to her firebrand penultimate song, "Just a Girl."

"Think about how many years I've been loving you guys!" she cheered before the latter hit, adding, "This song means even more nowadays." Especially on this day.

The elder stateswoman rocked the hardest . This was the best and most bombastic of Jett's many gigs here in recent years. Of course, the 65-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's main hits went over in a big way at a big, summery music fest, including "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," "Bad Reputation" and the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb." She also dropped in a cool batch of edgier, deeper cuts with inclusive messaging, including "Different" and a cover of the Minnesota classic "Androgynous," which she introduced by saying, "I'm a big fan of this band and its songwriter, Paul Westerberg and the Replacements."

Morissette hasn't changed much (and that's a good thing). With an orange-ish moon adding dramatic ambience overhead, the Canadian record-maker/breaker put on a rather gutsy, in-your-face, 90-minute performance predictably filled with her big hits, including "One Hand in My Pocket" as the opener and "You Oughta Know" near the end. But she made the set way better than just a nostalgic singalong by delivering some similarly emphatic-sounding, inner-tumultuous newer songs, including the epic piano ballad "Rest" and the rockier "Smiling," the latter written for her hit Broadway musical, "Jagged Little Pill." Her voice was as strong as ever, her band was versatile, and she clearly deserved being the headliner.

There was one new element to the show we didn't see in the '90s, though: Morissette brought out her daughter Onyx, age 8, and another young friend to sing "Ironic." How ironic to hear it sung with such sweetness.

Even the younger acts sang the Gen-X hits. Wade earned loud cheers for her semi-ironic cover of Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl." Nerdy but impactful Kalamazoo indie-rocker Michigander sang part of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." The U2 song fit his own lost-wanderer, soul-searching vibe, evidenced by his unreleased tune that followed, "Giving Up." And after their own hit "Who's Laughing Now," local rockers Durry ended their set with a rousing take on Jimmyeatworld's "The Middle" (technically a millennials hit, but close enough).

The day's breakout performer was… . Sporting a Jett T-shirt and playing under a blazing midafternoon sun — things would soon cool down nicely with cloud cover — Wade coolly delivered an ultra-impressive set of musically refined, ruggedly poetic twang-rock that greatly contrasted her choice of covers. The Virginia singer came off like a tattooed Stevie Nicks in down-and-out rockers like "The Night" and "2 AM in London," each fueled by her smoky but sweet voice. A genuine wow.

What about Day Two? The bro factor should be much higher on Saturday, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers headlining, preceded by the Offspring, Gary Clark Jr., the Hold Steady, Soul Asylum and Hippo Campus. Tickets are sold-out except for some higher-end platinum and VIP options.

Chris Riemenschneider has been covering the Twin Cities music scene since 2001, long enough for Prince to shout him out during "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)." The St. Paul native authored the book "First Avenue: Minnesota's Mainroom" and previously worked as a music critic at the Austin American-Statesman in Texas.

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• Festival, ahoy! A dozen things to know about St. Paul's Minnesota Yacht Club Jul. 16
• Review: Minnesota Yacht Club festival ends in rowdy, dopey style with Chili Peppers • Music
• Review: Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago make St. Paul fans feel the love • Music
• Black Crowes cancel Minnesota Yacht Club appearance set for Friday • Music
• Festival, ahoy! A dozen things to know about St. Paul's Minnesota Yacht Club • Music
• Review: Stefani, Morissette spark a 'Hella Good' start to Minnesota Yacht Club festival • Music

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