Cork Week 2004 - Corinthians on Tour

Cork 2004 saw 42 Corinthians competing in 5 boats entered under the LCSC flag:

There was also a smattering of other members popping up in a wide variety of boats including Ed Hipkins' 707 "Sharkin Mad".

With such a large gang there are far more stories to tell than I can write or any reader would wish to trawl through. Besides which "what goes on tour stays on tour", so the best gossip has been left well behind. But for those unlucky souls unable to make Cork Week, here's a view from the decks of Arbitrator and from the crew of Sunsail 13 (see below).

Arbitrator Cork Week 2004

Arbi crew on deck

The first challenge of racing at Cork Week is to get there. It's over 300 miles from the Solent and, as you may recall, it was exceptionally windy the week before racing started. With Sigma 38 racing commencing 2 days before the rest of the fleet, Arbitrator set off early Monday afternoon (the crew having only returned from the St Malo race on Innovation that morning) and raced ahead of the encroaching storm to be safely holed up in Royal Cork Yacht Club bar by Wednesday night. The 3 crews racing in Sunsail boats had no such concerns - Sunsail delivered the boats to Cork - while 707s of course can be towed. But X332 Dragonfly Too was stuck awaiting a window in the weather, and finally reached Cork at midnight on Sunday having had to blag fuel off a fishing boat on their way across the Irish Sea.

Nick fishing

The Sigmas' overnight race turned out to be its usual lottery - with crews drifting aimlessly off Cork in the early hours of the morning and failing to complete the course within the time limit. Nick proudly caught a mackerel, and indeed could have caught a sea bass too if only Arbi had a landing net. The race was eventually deemed to have finished off the last buoy that all the boats did get round and Arbi was 3rd.

Meanwhile back on land hospitality at Cork was getting into full swing. While the number of boats, at 550 (all that can literally be squeezed into Crosshaven), is smaller than that competing at Cowes Week, there are many more beer tents, each with their own brand of music, organised in a fenced-off "compound" around the yacht club, marina and jetties. And with a bar closing time of 1:30am, more racing to pack in and a longer motor out to start lines, sleep is not long on the agenda for those living on board their boats. Fortunately for the crew of Dragonfly Too (and other LCSC members who crashed there on occasions) Mike Ridley scored one of the best results of the week in renting a house right by the entrance of the yacht club.

In true Irish fashion the whole event appears to have little organisation, and everything runs smoothly. Boats are split into groups of 3 classes, and race on courses with them every day. Sigma 38s and X332s both have their own class, while the Sunsail boats were added to 'Echo' class - one whose rules were not immediately apparent but which proved a very happy hunting ground for Shaun Curran's boat, Sunsail 13, finishing 4th overall, with two outright race wins. Each group races a different course every day, providing a variety of sailing.

Pulling hard

4th in class overall was also achieved by Arbitrator - the same as 2 years ago - and justified many celebratory beers. But the crew was perhaps more excited with their result in the tug-of-war hosted in our favourite beer tent. Those of us deemed too light to be useful were replaced by an enormous crew member from fellow Sigma 38 Mustigo and an eager Irish spectator, and in making the semi finals the crew got further than an entry from the British navy. With a pair of Dubarry boots on offer for each member of the winning team there was some awesome Irish oppo around, but we certainly won the prize for the best support, from the rest of LCSC, and the best dressed team. It's amazing the alacrity with which grown men will wear flowery shorts…

One feature of Cork week is being able to listen to the radio chatter between the committee boats and those laying marks for them. Our first day's inshore racing was scheduled to comprise two windward/leeward races. The wind that day was particularly fickle, and the endeavours to provide a fair course were laudable and entertaining. Suffice to say the commentary lasted for several hours (the first race ended up abandoned) and included such gems as 'the wind is coming off that field - the green one'. Another typical comment came later in the week from a committee boat despairing of the start line set: 'you've given us a 5 degree starboard bias and the whole fleet will end up parked in my aft cabin'. Royal Yacht Squadron take note.

As well as sailing windward/leeward and Olympic courses, there are two longer races in a coastal race (so designed so you can view the scenic coastline - it was driving rain and thick mist the day of ours) and a harbour race. The latter proved familiar to Solent racers - Cork Harbour is tidal, narrow and shallow with large wind shifts. This was our last race, and our skipper noted a distinct 'end of term' feeling amongst a very tired crew who were showing more enthusiasm for throwing water bombs at the opposition than for planning to beat them on the water. Needing only to finish within 7 places of the boat lying 5th to stay 4th overall, we succeeded in rounding the first mark 4th last. At this point we were shouted at enough to wake us up and sail up to 4th place - whereupon we could revert to looking forward to the final evening's frivolities.

Cork Week was graced for the first time by two massive yachts in the new MAX Z86 class, Pyewacket and Morning Glory. The former is owned by Roy Disney, nephew of Walt, who named the boat after a character dreamt up by the man himself but never unleashed on the public. The last time the two boats raced, in Antigua, saw Morning Glory soundly beating Pyewacket, but Roy, whose family hails from the region, found Cork Week much more to his liking and Morning Glory did not even bother to show up for the last race.

While, unlike Cowes Week, we didn't get to share a starting area with these boats, it is one the many charms of Cork Week that you can meet all the crews in the bars afterwards. And after several beers we told Roy that in two years time we'd be bringing Innovation K2 over to provide some more competition for Pyewacket. So we'd better make sure that we do!

A river of boats en route to the start

Hilary Cook

Sunsail 13: Lucky for Some

When we heard we were Sunsail 13 in Class 13 we felt pretty doomed. "Thank you God", as Basil Fawlty would have said.

Undaunted, the crew under skipper Shaun Curran, ordered T-shirts embroidered with 'Sunsail 13 - Lucky for Some' and waited for the inevitable.

But to our great surprise it didn't happen. In fact we bucked all the odds for a crew that had never sailed together before and had relatively little racing experience between us... but I will save the self congratulations for a few paragraphs further down.

Cork Week Regatta, 10 to 17th July, is a great fiesta, with 400 boats and thousands of crew squeezed into the scenic but tiny Crosshaven Marina near Cork City. The Irish welcome was all we had expected: a tented village of music marquees, bars, shops and food stalls, and mercifully free of corporate sponsorship types. In this small estuary, with yachts rafted 10 or 12 out, the sailors dominated.

There were two races a day for five days, all in and around the bay area of Cork. We ranged in size from Pyewacket and Morning Glory, meeting for their first head on challenge after the Caribbean regattas, to local gentleman cruisers. (One misty morning as we motored along with the long phalanx of boats leaving the harbour for the bay area, Pyewacket came steaming past at 16 knots, sails already full; she was beautiful and made it look so EASY. Ha.)

I guess the weather was all we had expected too but had not hoped for ... it mizzled, it drizzled, it spitted, it spotted, it bucketed, but with just enough sun in the early evenings to cheer the slow crawl back up river to the pontoons. The racing was hard going for us relative novices but under the amazing tutelage of Shaun Curran we started to learn fast and forget our bruises and aches and pains.

The nights were for partying till early hours with the crews from Arbitrator, Dragonfly Too, Sunsail 17 and Sunsail 22 also from LCSC, and with anybody else that would care to dance with us (or anyone else who did not for that matter). All five boats met for an LCSC dinner on Wednesday night and looked a fearsome sight in our matching red cheeks as we practised our Irish dancing.

So by Thursday evening our crew were enjoying ourselves but had little idea of how we were doing in the races. Then Shaun came back to the boat after the day's declaration and said in a quiet sort of way that he reckoned that if we went to bed early tonight we would do quite well tomorrow. So we did, and we did. When Shaun returned on Friday evening with a magnum of champagne to announce we were fourth in class out of 27, the shrieks of delight had boats around us congratulating us on winning the whole regatta.

What a way to end an exhausting but quite fantastic week. Can't wait for 2006.

Robyn Griffith-Jones

Copyright © London Corinthian Sailing Club 2004