Since 1958, Rolex has partnered several prestigious yacht clubs around the world, working with them to nurture the biggest races in sailing.
Since 1958, Rolex has partnered several prestigious yacht clubs around the world, working with them to nurture the biggest races in sailing. Here are a few to know.
REGATTA ROLEX NEW YORK YACHT CLUB INVITATIONAL CUP
Having worked with Rolex since 1958, the New York Yacht Club (NYYC) is the club that marks where it all started – “it” being the watch company’s dozen official partnerships with yacht clubs around the world. Working with those prominent players, Rolex has helped to grow some of sailing’s biggest events. The founder of the famous America’s Cup, the NYYC is also behind the biennial Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, an event that pays tribute to the Corinthian spirit – the spirit of sportsmanship in amateur sport. The event sees teams racing identically tuned IC37 boats on Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound.
LEAGUE SAILGP
This year, Rolex begins a partnership with SailGP, a new global league headquartered in London and San Francisco. Designed to put the viewer at the heart of the experience, the racing series focuses on faster sailing in the form of foiling, where a boat’s hull or hulls are lifted out of the water to reduce resistance. The 2019 season sees six national teams piloting identical F50 catamarans – each weighing 2,400kg – that can move at speeds greater than 100kmh. Races take place throughout the year at five harbours: Sydney, San Franciso, New York, Cowes and Marseille.
REGATTA MAXI YACHT ROLEX CUP
REGATTA ROLEX FASTNET RACE
More than 3,000 sailors, 340 yachts from up to 30 countries, and a 605-nautical mile (1,120km) course: These are the figures behind the Rolex Fastnet Race, the world’s largest ocean race, which takes place in the waters off the British Isles every two years in August. This regatta is run by the Royal Ocean Racing Club, which is headquartered in London, but has members from 54 countries. The club was founded in 1925 to “encourage long-distance yacht racing and the design, building and navigation in which speed and seaworthiness are combined”.
REGATTA ROLEX CHINA SEA RACE
Kicking off in Hong Kong’s bustling Victoria Harbour and ending 565 nautical miles later in Subic Bay in the Philippines, the biennial Rolex China Sea Race is a key regatta in this part of the world. The event came about after a member of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club sailed his new yawl from Manila to Hong Kong in 1959, and subsequently suggested to his fellow members that they repeat this endeavour, but as a race. Two years later, three yachts took part in the first China Sea Race.
REGATTA ROLEX SYDNEY HOBART YACHT RACE
BEN AINSLIE
PAUL CAYARD
A seventime world champion and two-time Olympian, American sailor Paul Cayard has also competed several times at the highest levels of elite sailing, including the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race (now known as The Ocean Race). His numerous honours include being inducted into the US Sailing Hall of Fame in 2011, and being named the US Rolex Yachtsman of the Year in 1998.
ROBERT SCHEIDT