North Sails Cowes Week 2026 delivered a brutally difficult day for tacticians, sail trimmers and those trying to steer the 641 boats on the racecourse on Moving Day Thursday.
Thursday was Royal Navy Day and for the eight dayboat classes starting on the committee vessel in Osborne Bay, 12- to 15-mile courses saw them traversing the Bramble Bank and the mouth of Southampton Water. For the big boats starting on the Royal Yacht Squadron line, much longer courses saw them going as far west as Lymington.
In the XOD Class, serial winners Tim Copsey, John Tremlett and Fraser Graham on Astralita were left out of the battle for overall honours after being disqualified for being OCS before the second start following an earlier general recall. Meanwhile, Lone Star, sailed by Phil Lawrence, David King and Nick Froud, put another second on their scorecard to lock up the Captains’ Cup with a day to spare, tomorrow being the last day of racing.
The New York Yacht Club Challenge Cup, the second of the prestigious trophies for the big boats, was won by Karl Kwok’s Beau Geste from Hong Kong. With six straight bullets, Beau Geste has cleaned up IRC Class 0.
Back on the Bramble Plateau, the Mermaid class has seen the opposite scenario, with Sirena, sailed by Anthony Eaton and his crew, moving up and down the scoreboard. Three second places have given them a very good lead going into the last day. Ben Few Brown’s Halluf is still in with a chance.
In the Sigma 33 class, Toby Gorman and his crew on Stan The Boat have, have dominated all week on the water, with six race wins giving them an unassailable lead.
No surprise in the Quarter Ton class. Sam Laidlaw’s BLT has six straight race wins and will win North Sails Cowes Week in her class, a repeat of her performance last year. BLT is also in good shape to win the Black Group overall and, in a rare occurrence, the leader from the XOD Class, Lone Star, leads the White Group overall.
The Swallow class returned to Cowes Week last year after a break of 10 years, and they’re back again in 2026 to celebrate the bicentenary regatta. Nigel Masding and Hugo Fisher, sailing Svala, have a small lead over Osprey, sailed by James Hartley and crew. The battle for third is very tight, but no one can now catch these two overall.
Former Chairman of Cowes Combined Clubs Peter Taylor won today’s race in the Sunbeam Class by just over two minutes. Holly, sailed by Martin and Vicky Jones, was in second place, and these two had an enormous lead over Symphony, sailed by Zac Sheppard and crew.
The Victory class from Portsmouth always enjoy Cowes Week, and this year James Joplin and Mark Brighs in Zest lead the way in front of Jim Downing and Zoe Whitaker in Ziva, just ahead of John Scammel and Maxine Reeves in Zilch. At this point the typewriter ran out of the letter Z. Luckily, Shearwater, sailed by Russell Mead, Darren Barnard and Martyn Brown, is in fifth!
To recognise 200 years of one of the world’s greatest regattas, Cowes Combined Clubs have put up a new trophy, the Bicentenary Gold Cup.
The trophy was presented based on the first three days of results made sure that everybody who had raced was able to win. Applying the overall scoring format that the organisers have used at Cowes Week for many years, the Bicentenary Cup was won by High Spirit in the Performance Cruiser D class. Congratulations to Andy Maskell and his team.
More detailed results of all classes are available here on the Cowes Week results website pages.
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