Century-old luggers sail home to Looe for the Classics weekend

The tide charts have already decided the date. When the Looe Lugger Classics returns over the weekend of July 31 to August 2, the timing has less to do with the calendar than with some of the highest tides of the year, the only water deep enough to float a fleet of traditional wooden fishing boats back into the harbour that raised them.

Many of these luggers and yachts are more than 100 years old, and getting them home safely means watching two things above all else, the weather and the horizon. The weather will decide whether the boats can make the passage at all. The horizon is where the sharpest-eyed spectators on the quays of East and West Looe will spot the first sails of the day.

The South East Cornwall port is bracing itself for an invasion of baggywrinkles, bumpkins, carlins, gudgeons and ratlines, and reassuringly none of them calls for pest control or a weather warning. They are all pieces of the boating world’s own vocabulary, and that colourful language will be filling the air around the quays for an event run, as ever, by the Looe-based Cornish Lugger Association.

Keeping Looe’s maritime history afloat

The lugger committee does not want Looe’s seafaring past to slip away over the horizon, and its members are buoyed by the fact that plenty of others feel the same. The Looe Harbour Commissioners, the West and East Looe Town Trusts, Looe Town Council, Looe Sailing Club and the RNLI all share those ideals. Without the backing of local organisations, and especially the harbour’s owners and custodians, the regatta simply could not happen.

This year’s event builds on the success of the 2025 edition, with sailing races out in the bay and a Regatta Village at Mally’s Shed, the West Looe Quayside Centre, given over to music, food, pictorial memories, heritage talks and demonstrations.

The luggers take their name from the distinctive lug sail rig they carry, and their size is exactly why the regatta has to ride those big spring tides. That constraint has nudged this year’s dates slightly out of their usual slot. It also flips last year’s running order, so the classic Old Gaffers sailing yachts and some of the luggers will now feed into Looe from Fowey Classics, rather than the other way around.

A clash of dates and a missing race officer

The shift is not without complications. The event now overlaps with the Lions’ Looe Carnival parade and the start of the National Scorpion dinghy sailing championships, run by Looe Sailing Club.

The sting in the tail is that long-standing lugger race officer Brian Bowdler will not be available, because he is on duty for the Scorpions. Those title races drew more than 50 boats at Mount’s Bay last summer and were won by Tom Gillard and his crew Rachael Gray. Tom is a professional sailmaker with the prestigious North Sails company and has won 37 major championships across ten different classes of boat, which gives some sense of the level these UK championships are pitched at.

Brian’s expertise will be missed by the luggers, but another experienced local sailor, David Juleff, is stepping in to run the regatta’s three races over the weekend.

The Blue Shark and the Redwing

The two music stages have each been given a name this year, and both reach back into Looe’s past. The main stage becomes The Blue Shark stage, marking the 60th anniversary of the opening of Looe’s original nightclub.

The Blue Shark stood on the site of the old Regent Cinema just over Looe Bridge, in an area now taken up by the Amusement Arcade. Fittingly, the same spot was once home to the boatbuilding yard of Peter Ferris and Dick Pearce. Dick launched at least 17 of the famous old fishing luggers, among them the Our Daddy, the I.R.I.S and the Our Boys, while Peter built more than 12, including the Guide Me.

The second stage, inside the Looe Sailing Club bar, is now the Redwing stage. It honours the 14ft clinker-built sailing dinghies designed specifically for Looe Bay in 1938 by the legendary Uffa Fox. Around 20 acts have been lined up to share the two stages across the three days.

The full line-up, race schedule and heritage programme can be found in the free online Looe Lugger Classics 2026 brochure.

📷CLOSE CALL: The Looe-built Cornish luggers, the I.R.I.S and the Our Daddy racing at a previous Looe Lugger regatta. Both former fishing boats were built by Dick Pearce in Looe in 1921. The former was named after the first owner’s daughters (Irene, Rosie, Ida and Susie) and the latter was part of a well-known 20th Century fishing triumvirate, including the Our Boys and the long-lost Our Girls Picture: Neil Richardson