Die Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS) wird mit ihren Partnern New York Yacht Club (NYYC) und Yacht Club de Monaco (YCM) eine "Westward Cup" Regatta in Cowes vom 5. bis 11. Juli 2010 organisieren. Es soll ein Event etabliert werden, das eventuell ein Revival der Big Class Regatten auf dem Solent in den ersten Jahrzehnten des letzten Jahrhunderts einleitet.

Anlass fur den Westward Cup bietet der 100. Geburtstag des Schoners Westward von 1910. Die Westward wurde konstruiert und gebaut von Nat. Herreshoff in Bristol, RI, USA. Westward regattierte regelmäßig gegen King George V’s "Britannia" und andere Big Class Yachten.

Die Eigner von vier großen Yachten haben ihre Teilnahme bereits zugesagt, die Veranstalter erwarten vielleicht noch zwei, drei weitere Yachten.

- Eleonora – Eleonora is a true replica of Westward with exactly the same lines as the original, and constructed using the same materials.

- Britannia - a recently launched replica of King George V’s yacht Britannia, built in 1893 and the most successful racing yacht of all time, winning 231 races and 129 prizes from 634 starts.

- Mariquita - this William Fife-designed 19 metre class, Mariquita was launched from the Fairlie yard on the river Clyde in 1911. She achieved a distinguished racing record before being decommissioned in the 1930’s. Following extensive re-commissioning, Mariquita has now rejoined the fleet.

- Mariette of 1915 - a famous Herreshoff yacht built in 1915 and restored to her present condition in the mid-1990s.

In der Pressemitteilung der RYS heißt es zur Konzeption der Regattatage:

"The concept behind this wonderful opportunity is that a selected number of invited yachts will come to Cowes, the original home of racing in these elegant boats, and compete over similar courses that they or their predecessors will have done in the 1920s and ‘30s. Clearly, conditions have changed since those days and safety will be paramount. In terms of the racing itself, four days of racing and a rest day are envisaged and the sailing instructions will adhere as closely as possible to those recently agreed by 'La Belle Classe', an association of classic yachts initiated by the YCM.

Invitations to this prestigious event are personal and limited to the owners of Big Class classic yachts that wish to race these beautiful large boats in the style that pertained early in the last century, when they were designed or built."