Although the 2026 edition of Cowes Week – which got underway over the weekend – may not have drawn the 1,000+ entry it reached at its peak in 2005, it has pulled in a title sponsor – North Sails – for the first time in a long time, and a very healthy fleet of more than 630 boats will be packing the Solent over the coming week.
I fell in love with Cowes Week the first time I attended, some time in the late ‘80s. I can recall as clear as day gasping as the fast ferry from Southampton weaved its way through the masses of racing boats packing the Solent. My sailing experience at that time was largely limited to dinghy sailing on the lakes and reservoirs of the north-west of England. This was something completely alien to me. I had never seen so many yachts in one place at one time. Ashore that afternoon, it seemed that everyone was a racing sailor. Cowes’ narrow high street was thronged with people in Musto, Henri Lloyd, and Helly Hansen kit. Every bar and restaurant was packed out with yacht crews reliving the on-the-water action from the day. It was a whole new world for me, and I thought it was all just fantastic.
I returned to Cowes Week regularly after that. I was there in 1996, racing aboard a new Humphreys 30 called Men Behaving Badly. The boat was yet to have its saildrive propulsion system fitted, so we somehow cobbled together a Heath Robinson-style transom bracket to hang an outboard borrowed from my J24.
