Bermuda Gold Cup centenary

$50,000 in prize money for the winner of this year's event

Event organisers at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club have set October 9-14 as the dates for the 59th annual Bermuda Gold Cup for the King Edward VII trophy. This year s event also marks the centennial anniversary of the King Edward VII Gold
Cup trophy.

The Gold Cup will offer $50,000 in prize money with $25,000 earmarked for the champion. The Notice of Race is available for download from the official event Web site, www.bermudagoldcup.com , under Event Info. The Schedule of Events also is available there.

The Gold Cup is slated as Stage 14 of the World Match Racing Tour. The tour champion at the end of the year will be named the ISAF Match Racing World Champion.

Requests for invitations to the Gold Cup should be made to the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club by Monday, July 9. Les Crane, Event Organizer of the Gold Cup expects last year’s finalists, including champion Ian Williams of Great Britain and runner-up Mathieu Richard of France, to be in the linepup. "We expect a highly competitive field with sailors from America’s Cup teams and last year’s top finishers in attendance."

The winner of this year’s event will be marked in history for winning the King Edward VII Gold Cup on its 100th anniversary. The Gold Cup, the oldest match-racing trophy in the world for competition involving one-design yachts, was first presented at the Tri-Centenary Regatta at Jamestown, Va., in 1907 by King Edward VII in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the first permanent settlement in America. C. Sherman Hoyt won the regatta and was the first to accept the now historic cup.

After three decades of holding the Cup, Mr. Hoyt gave it to the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and proposed a regular one-on-one match-race series in 6-Meter yachts. In his letter he said “The gift of the Gold Cup expresses the long yachting tradition existing between the Original Thirteen States and the oldest self-governing British Colony.” and expressed the propriety of “my returning a British Royal trophy to the custody of your club, with its long record of clean sportsmanship and keenly contested races between your Bermuda yachts and ours of Long Island Sound, and elsewhere." The first winner of the Cup in its new format was the celebrated Briggs Cunningham, who was also the first skipper to win the America’s Cup in a 12-Metre.

In the post-war years, the club placed the cup in competition in 1956 for match-racing in yachts of the International One-Design Class (IOD). Bert Darrell had the honor of being first to defend the Cup in this class and won it a total of six times. New Zealander Russell Coutts became the event’s all-time winner in 2004 when he won his seventh championship.

The Bermuda Department of Tourism is the Official Host Sponsor of the Gold Cup. Event sponsors include Renaissance Re, Max Capital Group Ltd, Bermuda Telephone Company , Bermuda Premium Spirits, Correia Construction and Oleander Cycles.