Watch all the action from The 1851 Cup regatta in Cowes between BMW Oracle Racing and event winners, TEAMORIGIN on Sky Sports this week.

BMW Oracle and TEAMORIGIN go head-to-head in the 1851 Cup at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. It recreates the famous race that gave rise to sailing's most revered event: the Americas Cup.

An insightful and exclusive behind the scenes look at The 1851 Cup regatta hosted by The Royal Thames Yacht Club during Cowes week, the longest running sailing competition in the world.
Interviews with Ben Ainslie, TEAMORIGIN skipper and helmsman and Britain’s most successful Olympic sailor reveal what it takes to go match racing head-to-head with the Americas Cup winners BMW Oracle Racing and win!  Onboard cameras give viewers the full flavour of the highs and lows and heat-of-the moment action from within the cockpit of an americas cup yacht.

The UK’s City of Culture 2013, Derry~Londonderry, has today announced it is to become part of the Clipper 11-12 Round the World Yacht Race with an official city boat in the race. In addition the city will be an official host port, welcoming the ten-strong fleet in July 2012 with a showcase festival at the end of the final transatlantic stage of the 40,000-mile race en route to the race finish.

It will be the first time that Northern Ireland has been represented in the race which attracts a global audience of more than 460 million people.

The potential for the 11-12 entry was developed by Derry City Council with the support of Londonderry Port and Ocean Event Management. It will form an integral part of the campaign to market the city’s culture, business and education offerings in a number of the cities on the Clipper 11-12 route. The development of the tourism and international potential for the race and festival has been supported by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

The yacht will be one of ten identical 68-foot ocean racing yachts, each of which is sponsored by a city, region or country to carry their name around the world. Joining the Derry~Londonderry entry will be Uniquely Singapore and the Chinese entry, Qingdao, for whom hosting the Clipper Race was a key step in securing the rights to host the sailing events of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Both sponsors have discovered that the Clipper Race provides a unique platform for delivering global market exposure at local market values.

Ireland remains the runaway leader after day two of the 2010 Rolex Commodores’ Cup. Those chasing, led by 2008 winners GBR Red, with strong competition for second from France Blue in third and the potent Hong Kong team in fourth, did a good job to minimise the damage inflicted today: the Irish managing to extend the gap over the second-placed team, but only by 2.5 points.

Conditions were perfect for today’s two races with brilliant sunshine and more breeze – 14-17 knots from the northwest for the first, dropping off to 10-15 for the second. First up was an inshore race around the length and breadth of the eastern Solent, followed by a shorter windward-leeward course set off Hill Head on the mainland shore.

In the big boat class race one saw a rare corrected time tie between Anthony O’Leary’s Ker 39 Antix (IRL), maintaining her perfect scoreline for the Irish team, and Nicolas Loday and Jean Claude Nicoleau’s Grand Soleil 43 Codiam in France Blue. While Antix remains the boat to beat among the big boats, it was Codiam that scored two bullets today.

Australia went home laden with gold after an astonishing week of racing in Weymouth Bay, the 2012 Olympic venue.

Australia went home laden with gold after an astonishing week of racing in Weymouth Bay – the 2012 Olympic venue. The Aussies picked up gold in four classes; Nicky Souter, Nina Curtis and Olivia Price in the Women’s Match Racing, the Skud-18 was won by Daniel Fitzgibbon and Rachael Cox on Friday, Tom Slingsby took gold in the Laser Men, and Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen made up the top quartet with a win in the 49er class.

The French team pushed Australia all the way, with three gold medals – Pierre Leboucher and Vincent Garos winning the 470 Men, Charline Picon took gold home in the RS:X Women, and in the 2.4mR, it was Damien Seguin who did the business for France. The Dutch team then edged the home nation out of the gold medal table with wins in two classes, Marit Bouwmeester in the Laser Radial and Udo Hessels, Marcel van de Veen and Mischa Rossen in the Sonar. While Team Skandia GBR were left with a single gold - Giles Scott in the Finn. The consolation for the most successful Olympic sailing nation of the last three Olympiads was a hatful of the lesser shades, two silver and four bronze medals.

Ireland grabbed the 2010 Rolex Commodores’ Cup by the throat on the opening day. With two windward-leeward races held in the eastern and central Solent, the three Irish boats won in each of their classes in the first race. In the second race, the team’s otherwise perfect scoreline was only tarnished by their mid-sized boat, David Dwyer’s Mills 39 marinerscove.ie, posting a second. With six days of competition left, the Irish, on 7 points, already hold a huge lead over the defending champions, GBR Red and Hong Kong, tied on 23. Previous experience will not allow the Irish to get carried away just yet.

The Solent started out grey and miserable today but the sun broke through mid-morning with a 10 knot northwesterly and a strong eastbound tide. For race two the Race Committee moved the race area to just east of the Brambles Bank to minimise the tide and for this the wind had veered into the northeast and built, at times gusting up to 20 knots.

Charley Cook (USA) is the ISAF Principal Race Officer (PRO) at the 2010 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta. He will also be the (PRO) for the 2012 Olympic Games Sailing Competition to be held in Weymouth in just under two year’s time. 

The success of almost any major sports event is now dependent on the volunteers and their connection with the event. The final regatta of the 2009/10 ISAF Sailing World Cup in Weymouth has attracted a record fleet of nearly 700 boats and requires a large team to manage them. At this years regatta there are around 350 volunteers.