LaserPerformance (Europe) Ltd and Volkswagen have announced that 2008 will see the return of the Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes at Skandia Cowes Week.

On Friday 1 August class winners from 2007 will race in identical Laser SB3s off Cowes in a one-day, three race regatta. Following on from the hard-fought inaugural event held last year, some 32 leading national and international helms will have the opportunity to pitch their skills against each other, and compete for the Volkswagen Touareg.

With winning helms from classes as diverse as the historic XOD day boats and the high tech IRC Class Zero maxis this event draws together the very best sailors from Skandia Cowes Week.

The winning helms will be drawn at random through an independent draw to ascertain which SB3 owner they will be paired with. The class winners must helm their boat with the SB3 owner as principle crew member. (The SB3 class winner will not be permitted to sail his own boat but will also be allocated to an SB3 through the independent draw to prevent any unfair advantage.)

The Skandia Cowes Week 2007 class winners invited to compete in this year’s Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes competition are:

Class, Boat, Name Entrant
1720, La Licorne, Mark Greenway
Daring, Dauntless, Giles Peckham
Dragon, Princess Jalina, David Palmer
Etchells White Group, Arbitrator, Graham Bailey
Flying Fifteen, Men Behaving Badly, John Mander
Hunter 707, The Ant Hill Mob, Russell Mead
Laser SB3, Musto, Glenn Bourke
Redwing, Toucan, Peter Romer-Lee
RS Elite, Eclipse, Ian Andrew
RSK6, Courageous, Richard Talbot
Sports Boat Rating, Abstension II, Kevin Downer
Seaview Mermaid, Sheen, N R Dobbs
Solent Sunbeam, Daisy, Michael Moss
Sonar, Bertie, Simon Barter
Squib, Firecracker Too, Andrew Porteous
Swallow, Skua, Harry Roome
Victory, Zinnia, Jeremy Lear
XOD, Swallow, Simon Russell
Contessa 32, Drumbeat, Eldred Himsworth
J109, Shiva, Matthew Boyle
IRC 0, ICAP Leopard, Mike Slade
IRC 1, Flash Glove, Colm Barrington
IRC 2, WISC, Glynn Williams
IRC 3, Holmatro, Sander Speet
IRC 4 Black Group Amey, Love Shack, Tim Spalding
IRC 5, Alvine Jacobite, Harry Evans
IRC 6, Fatjax, Iain Kirkpatrick
IRC 7, Earls Court Boatshow, Adam Gosling
IRC 8, Mikado, Michael Briggs
IRC 9, Madelaine, Edward Donald
J-Sprit, Mojo, Jill Stevenson
Multihulls, Buzz, Philip Cotton

Three races are scheduled with no discard ensuring that the teams are given the most rigorous test. For 2008 the course format is revised slightly to include a Skandia Cowes Week style ’round the cans’ course in addition to the ‘windward leeward’ format, which was used exclusively at the inaugural event. The ’round the cans’ format gives a greater test of navigational skills and was introduced in response to the competitor’s request for a competition that offered the broadest possible test of skills.

The racing will be tight, as they will be battling it out for:

Skippers Owners
1st Volkswagen Touareg Family holiday to Mark Warner
2nd Laser XD SB3 Mainsail
3rd Laser BUG SB3 Jib

The independent draw to match class winners with SB3s will take place in May and further information about the location and timing of the draw will be published shortly.

For more information, visit www.kingofcowes.com .