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2025 Mixed Double Handed Offshore World Champions Thomas André and Théa Khelif celebrate on the steps of the RORC Cowes clubhouse. Since the Cowes base was refurbished with a greatly improved layout it feels as if there has been a non-stop stream of major events successfully hosted there – including the Admiral’s Cup where the modern facilities and open-door policy were a huge hit. It was not long ago when meeting friends at ‘the RORC’ meant Mayfair in central London or the Cowes race office then a local pub
Moving on
I hope you enjoyed the London Corinthian Sailing Club piece last month, covering their involvement in the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race to add to their success in the 2023 edition. It shows that even if your sailing club is on a tidal stretch of river at the heart of a big city, with enough interest and drive within your club you can compete with honour in the world’s biggest offshore race. Congratulations to London Corinthian and we look forward to seeing you in 2027. The hour has come off, the days are getting shorter and our 2025
Season’s Points Championship has come to an end, in what has most probably been the busiest season in this club’s history. Sixteen races in the Season’s Points Championship, the Nelson’s Cup, Antigua 360, the Easter Challenge, West-East Transatlantic Race, the Admiral’s Cup, Salcombe Gin Centenary Race and Offshore Double Handed World Championships. But, hey, it’s our centenary year, so you’d expect just that little bit more. Following the huge success of the Admiral’s Cup, after a 22-year
hiatus, we have been getting feedback from owners taking part in order to finesse the format for 2027. As part of this process we were keen to quickly announce the IRC rating bands for the next edition, which involved some modest tweaking to the 2025 bands, but no major changes, other than we have introduced a maximum draft for the two classes to help with course-setting in the Solent. There has been a lot written about this Admiral’s Cup, but it bears
repeating the way in which Peter Harrison, Pierre Casiraghi and their team embraced everything about this famous competition and of course what it meant to the Principality. With a huge celebratory banner draped down one entire side of their three-storey clubhouse in Monaco, at a formal presentation at the end of September our Commodore re-presented the Admiral’s Cup trophy to the Jolt Team who in turn presented it to Monaco Yacht Club President, HSH Prince Albert II; and there it will reside for the next two years. Behind the scenes I know the graft our staff put in to deliver this
landmark event and I can’t thank them enough, along with our volun- teers and everyone who helped and supported us for their commitment, hard work and always going that extra mile – you were outstanding. I hope the RORC membership are very proud of what we delivered and the way the sailing community and media embraced the event. On the back of the successful Admiral’s Cup, the Yacht Club
Costa Smeralda decided to also bring the Sardinia Cup back for 2026. While the previous marathon race of that event, from Porto Cervo to the Porquerolles and return, will not be included, otherwise Sardinia Cup 2026 will follow the format for Admiral’s Cup 2025
76 SEAHORSE
and previous successful editions of the Sardinia Cup during the IOR era. Like the Admiral’s Cup the Sardinia Cup will be scored using IRC and as was traditional it will take place in alternate years with the Admiral’s Cup itself. Class bands for the Sardinia Cup and Admiral’s Cup will be the same, with similar criteria for sail numbers and crew configurations. The RORC Rating Office is working closely with YCCS on the NoR to ensure owners can race the same yacht at these two premier regattas and be fully competitive at both. Our centenary year celebrations have been continuing since the
summer with dinners in Plymouth and Hamburg, while Vice-Com- modore Derek Shakespeare hosted a dinner at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club where Karl Kwok and Gavin Brady were our guest speakers – following closely on their oh-so-near-miss finishing as runners-up in the 2025 Admiral’s Cup. Onto a little housekeeping and the Cowes clubhouse has moved
to winter hours – see the website for details including plans for the Christmas period. For the first time we have made the commitment to open the club every Friday evening throughout the festive period. The final sailing event of the season for us in the Solent was the
Mixed Double Handed Offshore World Championship, raced in one-design Sun Fast 30s – quite likely the first time the club has hosted a world championships at either of our clubhouses… We had 21 teams from five continents with the French crew of Théa Khelif and Thomas André being crowned the 2025 World Champions, closely followed by the young British runners-up Willow Bland and Zeb Fellows. A great result. Zeb was also the youngest competitor in the championships at just 18 years of age. In closing, after five years at the helm I will be standing down
as the RORC’s CEO in March next year. But more about that in due course… we still have a lot to do over the coming six months. However, with me moving on, the club has been reviewing its
senior management structure and has decided to split the existing chief executive role into two new executive roles – a Sporting Director and a General Manager. The Sporting Director will be responsible for all the club’s racing
activities, including the Griffin programme, the RORC Rating Office and relations with sponsors and key stakeholders including World Sailing. The General Manager will be responsible for membership, communications and marketing, plus clubhouse operations in London and Cowes, for major events and covering the various finance, IT and HR functions. Jeremy Wilton, CEO
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PAUL WYETH/RORC
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