From racing yachts and catamarans to working boats and traditional schooners, more than four hundred types of watercraft will take to the riverways and ocean waves that surround the bustling South Cornish port town of Falmouth between August 6th and August 14th.

Henri Lloyd Falmouth Week (www.falmouthweek.co.uk) is the largest mainland port regatta in the UK and features a packed schedule of action and entertainment both on and off the water including live music (headlined this year by UK rapper Tinchy Stryder), a Red Arrows display, fancy dress carnival, Caribbean night, bike stunt display from the Animal Team and fireworks finale.

Overlooking the third deepest natural harbour in the world and surrounded by the picturesque beauty of the Carrick Roads waterways, Roseland Peninsula and South Cornish coastline, Falmouth’s amphitheatre-like setting is the ideal locale for visitors to enjoy the spectacle.

The big winds continued for day six of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week, powering the biggest yachts to blistering speeds approaching 30 knots. Most dayboat classes were set short courses that ensured they had finished racing before gusts to 38 knots were encountered in the afternoon.

“It was a really exciting day, with a couple of enormous knockdown gusts of 31-32 knots just before our start,” said Liz Rushall whose boat Whiskers took a second win of the week in the Quarter Ton class.

“We had a running start, but left the spinnaker in the bag. Even so, we hit 11.2 knots surfing in the eastern Solent. It was a super course for the conditions, with lots of reaches that made it quite safe sailing given the wind strength.”

Andrew Shaw achieved a second successive bullet and third of the week in X23 Phoenix propelling him further into the overall lead after five races in the X One Designs, the biggest class competing at Aberdeen Asset Management (AAM) Cowes Week.

Today’s special race marked the final day of a three day ‘regatta within the regatta’, the AAM XOD Class Centenary Regatta.  The much anticipated highlight of the week was the attendance of HRH The Princess Royal when she visited the Royal Yacht Squadron platform to fire the gun to start the XOD race at 10am.  The Princess also met a number of XOD owners.

The easterly downwind start, from the Royal Yacht Squadron line, watched by huge crowds of spectators, saw the fleet favouring the northern end, as they disappeared into a rather gloomy damp morning towards the windward mark. 

Day five of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week saw more high adrenaline racing in strong winds and bright sun.

Today the Solent was sandwiched between areas of high and low pressure. “This makes it quite tricky to forecast wind speeds precisely,” said CEO Stuart Quarrie after the race officials’ early morning briefing. “Small movements of either weather system will create a big difference in the wind speeds we experience.” As he spoke the wind began a relentless non-stop upwards trend that lasted for five hours, peaking with mean speeds of 25 knots and gusts well over 30 through the afternoon.

It was another day of hard, wet beats to windward, followed by high speed downwind blasts that had competitors grinning from ear to ear as they came ashore. Unsurprisingly, there was also a lot of gear damage, including three J/109s, among them William Edwards’ Sardonyx and Robert Stiles’ Diamond Jem, who retired with broken rigs.

“Well, someone had to win,” commented co-owner of X169 Perdix David Humphreys, somewhat modestly after beating 138 other XODs on the third day of racing for the 100 year old class at Aberdeen Asset Management (AAM) Cowes Week. 

His comment did, however, sum up the nature of the conditions which saw Stuart Jardine and crew on X 119 Lone Star start five boats from the back of the fleet and claw their way 84 places back to a well-recovered 54th.

A gentler breeze than the event has seen so far – around 12 knots from the NW - meant a lot less dramas for the XODs on the Royal Yacht Squadron start line, viewed by hundreds of onlookers drawn by the spectacle of so many identical  boats on one line.