News - 2012

15:00 Monday 16 Apr 2012 Michelle WarnerSafety Film Launched for Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week

RS Elites safely share the Solent with commercial ships at Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week in 2011 (photo: Rick Tomlinson)

Cowes Week Limited (CWL) has today released a safety film ahead of this year’s Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week, designed to assist competitors in sailing safely at the world famous regatta.

Cowes Week was first established over 185 years ago in 1826, and during its evolution has finely tuned its operations and working relationships with the local harbour authorities to ensure a safe event within the busy shipping channel in the Eastern and Central Solent.

CWL are committed to ensuring a safe regatta and will continue to work alongside competitors and the harbour authorities to achieve this.  While incidents involving commercial vessels are very rare, they can happen. When they do, lessons must be learnt to safeguard against a repeat.

On the 6th August 2011, the first day of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week, a collision took place between a Class 4 racing yacht and an inbound, large tanker. This was the first incident of its type at the regatta in at least 15 years and thankfully no-one was seriously injured.

As organisers of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week, CWL has been assisting ABP with their investigations into this collision over recent months and ABP’s report into the incident will be published in the forthcoming months. In the meantime, a safety film has been co-sponsored by Associated British Ports (ABP), Red Funnel Ferries, Cowes Harbour Commission and CWL to assist safe sailing at one of the world’s largest regattas. This is now available here.