The Bermuda Gold Cup regatta has been confirmed to return in October as part of the World Match Racing Tour season calender next year.

Organisers, the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, were forced to postpone the event, scheduled for September of this year, because of difficulties it had in securing title sponsorship amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the World Championship event is set to be hosted on island from October 17 to 22 as one of 19 events scheduled across 12 countries as part of the Tour’s 22nd consecutive running of competition.

The new season will comprise of ‘World Tour’ events and ‘World Championship’ events, opening with the iconic Ficker Cup and the 57th edition of the Congressional Cup hosted by Long Beach Yacht Club in California, United States.

All events are organised under World Sailing rules as Open match racing events, allowing both men and women skippers, as well as mixed teams to compete. ‘World Championship’ level events award higher points to the World Match Racing Tour leader-board, and prize money of at least $75,000.

Joining the 2022 season are two new World Tour events, the inaugural Island Match Cup in Puerto Rico from May 24 to 29 and the OM International Ledro Match Race ― from June 16 to 19 ― founded in 2009 by the Associazone Vela Lago di Ledro on Lake Ledro, Italy.

Long standing tour events, Match Race Germany, Match Cup Marstrand and the Bermuda Gold Cup also join the line-up for 2022 as well as the US Grand Slam match racing events in Chicago, Detroit and Oyster Bay, New York.

The World Match Racing Tour Finals will be staged in Shenzhen, China at the Shenzhen Bao’an Match Cup, from December 6 to 11 with a prize purse of $200,000.

The 2021 finals, scheduled to take place this month in Shenzhen, was earlier postponed to March 15 to 20 next year, due to current border and quarantine restrictions in China.

“The last 18 months have certainly been challenging for many international sports events” said James Pleasance, World Match Racing Tour Executive Director. “However, we are excited to announce a full schedule of events for 2022 and we look forward to seeing world class match racing back on Tour next year.”

The 2022 championship format will be announced in the coming weeks.

Taylor Canfield and his Stars+Stripes USA team-mates won a third Gold Cup after defeating defending champion Ian Williams and GAC Pindar in the 2020 final of the match-racing spectacle in Hamilton Harbour.

The US Virgin Islands skipper’s second triumph in the regatta in two years bumped him farther up the pecking order to within four wins of equalling Sir Russell Coutts’s record of seven wins, achieved between 1990 and 2004.

The King Edward VII Trophy, awarded to the winner of the Bermuda Gold Cup, is the oldest trophy in the world for competition involving one-design yachts.

First presented in 1907 by King Edward VII at the Tri-Centenary Regatta at Jamestown, Virginia, honouring the 300th anniversary of the first permanent colony in America, the trophy is the only King’s Cup ever to be offered for competition in the United States that could be won outright.