History
The festival originates from the Prince Regent's interest in yachting which continued after he became George IV in 1820. The first race started at 09:30 on Thursday the 10th August 1826 with the prize of a "Gold Cup of the value of £100" and was held under the flag of the Royal Yacht Club, which later became the Royal Yacht Squadron. Another race was held the next day for prize money only (£30 for first place, £20 for second).
Until World War I, big cutters and raters were raced by gentlemen amateurs employing skippers and crew. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were cruiser handicap classes and local one-designs (although the six to eight and twelve metre classes attracted the most racing interest). Following World War II, when there was a revival of big yacht racing, ocean racing classes started to predominate, especially after the first Admiral's Cup event was held in 1957 and the growth in popularity of the two ocean-going races that start and finish the regatta The Channel and the Fastnet. The Fastnet, which rounds the Fastnet rock far out in the Atlantic and can be dangerous, is held in odd-numbered years only.
In the decades following World War II, yachting moved away from its image as a rich man's sport to one which is enjoyed by many today in modest self-skippered 30 to 40 foot yachts. The attraction of Cowes Week has also given life to many water-based activities and sailing schools promoting the sport of sailing to all age groups and walks of life. Although certain functions in the week are still the preserve of the elite or members-only clubs, Cowes Week encompasses a wide range of events and attractions open to the public, marketed to a very diverse range of interests.
Key shoreside events of Cowes Week include the festivities within the Cowes Yacht Haven, and the vibrant atmosphere in the Cowes Parade Village. Each of these events and other shore based entertainment are conducted in an attempt to create an attractive fun location for the general public.
Traditionally at the end of the Cowes Week event, a fireworks display is held. This has occurred for more than 150 years. In recent years contributions to the funding of the display have been requested by the community who enjoy and benefit from them.
Read more about this topic: Cowes Week
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)