Lendy Cowes Week 2018 - sailing photography

I got back last night from a fantastic few days photographing the action at Lendy Cowes Week 2018.As part of my Aquavisuals maritime photography brand I wanted to get a good range of sailing photos and yachting photography for some magazine features so I booked a few days out in my diary earlier this year and made the trip down south.  I had found a fantastic AirBnB place literally a stones throw from the quayside and about as central to the action as I could possibly get.  I love it when a plan comes together!I arrived on the Monday evening, Day 3 of Lendy Cowes Week and got straight to work catching some shots of some of the yachts crossing the finish line with their beautiful spinnakers bulging in the evening breeze, backlit by the setting sun... While on the quayside I overheard someone saying that these boats had all their pennants up because the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, was in Cowes for the sailing.  I then suddenly realised there were quite a few police around and some black cars parked behind me, seconds later I saw a small boat come into the marina and sure enough Princess Anne was on board.  She disembarked the boat and walked straight up the jetty towards me, talk about right place, right time! Biggest binoculars I've ever seen!Gonna need a bigger boat... For the rest of the week I had managed to secure a place on the Lendy Media boat which was fantastic, although the weather on Cowes Week day 4 wasn't ideal initially with torrential downpours......but it soon brightened up and the sailors all seemed to be enjoying themselves on what was Cowes Ladies Day... Cowes Week, Day 5 brought some great weather, sunshine, 25 knot gusts of wind and some good clouds in the blue sky to add some interest to the images.  By far the best day for photography of the time I was there... Fever Tree were handing out goodie bags to the yachts as they came back into the marina after a day's sailing.  Sadly they didn't give any to the media boat!RNLI Cowes Lifeboat were busy on the Wednesday with three shouts, this one made me smile - the Pig has gone belly up so who do you call?  Cowes Lifeboat obviously! Not a happy sight... Cowes lifeboat off on their next shout... So to my final day at Cowes Week, sadly another overcast day so I concentrated mostly on getting close ups of the action, trying to eliminate as much of the drab sky from the shots although I couldn't resist still getting plenty of wider shots showing these beautiful boats in action... Oops, slight touch there as some of the yachts struggled against a strong tide & little wind to get round one of the course markers... Hauling in the spinnaker! Joy at finally getting round the bouy after a tense few minutes of drifting the wrong way with the strong ebbing tide... So there's my favourite shots of this years Lendy Cowes Week, I'm already looking forward to heading back for next year plus a few other major yachting events in the diary.I am open to commissions to any yachting events so please drop me a line or see my Aquavisuals site, aimed specifically at maritime & boating photography here.For the full gallery of my 2018 Cowes week photos click here.• yachting photography • yacht photographer • sailing photographer • sailing photos • marine photographer •