Now that Rolex have added Antigua Sailing Week to their sponsorship portfolio of international sailing events competitors should benefit from the company’s extensive experience of running top class, world regattas.

The event, to be known as Rolex Antigua Sailing Week, is taking place from Sunday 30 April to Saturday 6 May and, going by the current number of entries listed on www.sailingweek.com website, there’ll be no shortage of competition. There will also be a total of six Rolex timepieces up for grabs for the overall class winners.

Although there have been a few tweaks to the race schedule this year including the format of the Yachting World Round the Island trophy see previous news story here , the organisers and Rolex are keen to retain the unique qualities of the event.

Chatting about Rolex’s involvement with the regatta Neil Forrester, chairman of Antigua Sailing Week’s organising committee, said: “Rolex has been doing a fantastic job of promoting Sailing Week in areas of the world that we could only dream of before including the Big Boat series in San Francisco and the Sydney-Hobart. In time we hope that this will help us grow the entry list in both quantity and quality of boats.”

According to Forrester, competitors who’ve been fortunate enough to experience Sailing Week before will notice a huge change in the Nelson’s Dockyard area which will now be known as the ‘event village’. Forrester continued: “This will take in the area used for the ball last year. Our committee desk will be in this village area with the Rolex Centre, tents for other sponsors, clothing sales, bars for Heineken and English Harbour Rum and a stage for entertainment. This should create an event atmosphere that we have not had in the past.”