Skipper & Boat draw in Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes

Set For Friday 13 June

The Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes regatta takes place on Friday 1 August and provides a spectacular opening to Skandia Cowes Week 2008 as the individual class winners from the preceding year's Skandia Cowes Week go head to head in identical Laser SB3s to find the ultimate Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes.

The boats for the event are provided by volunteer owners from the Laser SB3 Class and for this year's event thirty-three owners have stepped forward to make their boats available.

In order to first select the thirty-two Laser SB3s that will compete in the competition, and then pair them with the class winners for the competition a series of public draws will take place from 10am on Friday 13 June at Volkswagen's UK headquarters in Milton Keynes. You can track the draw results as they happen live at www.kingofcowes.com

The Skandia Cowes Week 2007 Class Winners confirmed to take part in the Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes 2008 are:

The thirty-three Laser SB3s entering the draw to host the Class Winners are:

The draws will be supervised by external adjudicators and will be recorded on video to ensure complete fairness. The video will be published on www.kingofcowes.com shortly after the draw.

The all up weight limit for crews is 270kg meaning that some boats will sail with three crew and others with four. The crew in each boat will include the Class Winner as helmsman and the Laser SB3 owner or his representative as first crewmember and the additional crew members are appointed by the Class Winner in consultation with the owner.

With fantastic prizes including a Volkswagen Touareg, a Mark Warner activity holiday, a Laser XD dinghy, a Bug dinghy by LaserPerformance and the Nexus Marine "Most Passionate Performance Award" as well as the title Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes at stake the competition at this year's event is expected to be hotter than ever.