Event
Calendar cornerstone
With 97 boats from 18 nations in seven classes and elite pro teams competing alongside amateur crews in perfect sailing conditions, this year’s Rolex Swan Cup was a classic
From New Year to the New York Marathon, there are certain events that don’t just populate columns in diaries, they provide key anchors. Without them a calendar feels unhinged. Among the classic events in the sailing world that pin the season down is the Rolex Swan Cup. For more than 40 years this
biennial event, hosted by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in Porto Cervo, has not only been one of the best supported regattas of its kind, but for the many skippers and crew that return year after year it has become a non-negotiable feature of the sailing calendar. More recently it has become a natural focus of attention for Swan’s highly successful Nations League. It doesn’t take much to see why the Rolex Swan Cup has proved so successful. For starters, the wide variety of
sizes and designs on the entry list from the brand-new Swan 120 Audrey the First to the S&S designed Swan 36 Josian (a magnificently restored example of one of the earliest Nautor Swan models dating back to 1967) says a great deal about the range and depth within the Swan family. This is a fleet where there is
space and competition for all, where fully professional teams compete at
64 SEAHORSE
the same venue as Corinthian crews. The six-day series provides a
mixture of racing within some of the most spectacular surroundings and the best conditions to be found anywhere among global racing venues. The notorious “Bomb Alley”, a stretch of water that runs between the Sardinian mainland and Costa Smeralda's off-lying islands that feeds the racing fleet out towards the Bonifacio Strait is as spectacular as it is tactically challenging. And when a strong NW breeze is in charge there is no mistaking how it got its nickname. The Rolex Swan Cup is also the
final event in the season’s hotly contested Nations League, the one-design circuit organised by ClubSwan Racing that takes in five Mediterranean regattas. Porto Cervo plays a pivotal part in the League where the overall winner, along with those from each of the four Swan one-design classes are crowned at the Rolex Crew Party. This in turn is a reminder of the legendary hospitality, where the glitz and elegance of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda is only matched by its natural capacity to host and entertain major events where the total crew list can easily stretch to well over 1,000.
The Rolex Swan Cup is a six-day series that provides a well judged mixture of racing for modern and classic Swan yachts of all sizes in the beautiful surroundings of Porto Cervo with some of the world’s best sailing conditions
For the 2022 season the final
day’s racing was a good example of why this event continues to be so popular, while at the same time highlighting the scale and variety within the fleet that makes the Swan Cup stand out. For the ClubSwan One-Design classes, the final points were decided with two closely fought windward-leeward races. Meanwhile, the varied and diverse fleet of 56 Swans taking part in the Rating classes took on a long coastal race around the La Maddalena archipelago, taking in the islands of Santo Stefano, Caprera and La Maddalena itself. ‘The Rolex Swan Cup is the
highlight of the Swan calendar and has been an iconic sailing event for the last 40 years thanks to a strong partnership with Rolex and Yacht Club Costa Smeralda,’ says Nautor Swan chairman Leonardo Ferragamo, an enthusiastic and regular competitor himself. ‘This race combines gentlemanly competition with a determined racing spirit and enhances the values of quality, elegance, innovation, performance, and reliability of each of the boats thatmake up the Swan community that travels fromall over the world to share and celebrate its passion for sailing.’
CLUBSWAN RACING/STUDIO BORLENGHI
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