Within the first eight years of the Rule, over 140 8mRs were launched, and the 8mR class received Olympic status in 1908, remaining the largest and most prestigious Olympic class until 1936.
"The owner can sail his Eight Metre round the coast from regatta to regatta, for coastal cruising gives owners the two most sought after things in life; health and happiness, for without doubt sailing at sea brings peace to the mind, and the clean salt-laden air health to the body, which are both needed by all in this mechanical age of irritating and poisonous fumes. The Eight Metres are very popular, for in the cabin an owner can live, or simply change his wet clothes after a hard race and eat his lunch in comfort according to his ideas of pleasure, added to this there is the protection the cabin provides in bad weather, for then it seems to make what otherwise be a boat, a ship." Uffa Fox 1934
The 8mRs race at Cowes Classics Week for the Aitken Trophy originally donated to RLYC in 1954 by Sir Max Aitken.
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Link: www.8mR.org.uk
