Page 28 - Yachter Spring/Summer 2022

28 RACING REPORTS
Crew of Cobra,Winners of The Queen’s Cup – Cowes Week 2021
THE ENGLISH SEASON
Forget the COVID effect for a moment and cast your mind back to the quintessential English Season which begins with the Cheltenham Festival in March. As soon as the Grand National, the Boat Race and Badminton Horse Trials were over, our social butterflies would gather in May at the Chelsea Flower Show before migrating to Glyndebourne for their operatic picnics. Those with sufficient stamina might find themselves at Great Windsor Park watching Guards Polo Club chukkas one day, ascending the grand staircase at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition launch the next. Top hats
would come out for Epsom and Ascot, cucumber sandwiches at Lord’s and strawberries and cream for Wimbledon before descending on Goodwood. Finally, the Henley Regatta would bring our butterflies to the water’s edge. From here they would gather in vast numbers before flying south to the most exuberant, colourful and physically challenging event of the season known as Cowes Week.
A History of Cowes reveals pilot cutters were racing in the Solent prior to The Yacht Club being established in 1815.The 1826 Regatta run by the now RoyalYacht Club, held a ball on Friday 12th followed by ‘a grand display of fireworks’ – a tradition which continues to this day.
The following year, King George IV indicated his approval of the event by presenting The King’s Cup and the event became known as Cowes Regatta. Initially run as a three day event it soon became a fixture in the English social calendar. In 1833 the Club became the RoyalYacht Squadron but, in those days, of course, it was a gentleman’s club and ladies were confined to the Deer Park – or the lawns as they
are now referred to.When QueenVictoria decided to purchase Osborne House in 1845, she also established the RoyalVictoria Yacht Club – local conjecture suggests this was because she was not eligible to join the Royal Yacht Squadron.
In 1875 the RVYC was instrumental in
the founding of theYacht Racing Association which today we call the RYA. It was in this year that QueenVictoria presentedThe Queen’s Cup to the Royal Southampton Yacht Club.This is a magnificent trophy (see
photo) which was lost between the wars and fortunately ‘Re-presented to the Club by The Commodore Sir GeoAE Hussey J.P
in April 1937’ having been found, so we are told, in a Welsh antique shop.