The 194th running of Cowes Week, the UK’s biggest annual regatta, was dominated by strong breeze conditions. With two days of racing lost, and gusty conditions of over 20 knots for much of the event, it turned into a no-discard series with the overall winners decided on a testing final day of much lighter winds and strong spring tides in the Solent.
While numbers were down on previous years, particularly in the bigger boat fleets, the 24-strong Cape 31 class delivered a show for spectators and photographers, enjoying some full-power asymmetric reaching. At the other end of the performance scale, a new Weekend Warriors Cup was created for the Club Cruiser Division, for boats that are true cruiser-racers.
Winners of White Group overall as top keelboat were Mark Downer and family sailing the Redwing Enigma. Their superb series, with a scoreline that included four 1sts and one 2nd place, also saw them deemed overall winners of Cowes Week 2023.
The victory was hard earned for Downer, who’s been racing at Cowes Week for 24 years and this year was competing with his wife Jo and son Alex: “We have been competing for 24 years and
