With no Morning Glory to joust with, Roy Disney’s Z86 Pyewacket sailed unimpeded to the front of the IRC Class 0 fleet on the Coastal Race up towards Kinsale and back. With her disqualification from the previous day’s protest with Morning Glory, the American Maxi needed a good final race to seal the class win. A dying breeze on the downwind leg to the finish did her no favours, as the smaller boats ate into her substantial lead.

But a third place on corrected time was sufficient to give Pyewacket victory, ahead of the close battle for second that had raged all week between Kerr 39 Flying Glove and DK46 Erivale. In the end it was Colm Barrington’s Flying Glove, aided by Eddie Warden-Owen on tactics and Rob Greenhalgh on mainsheet, that beat Erivale to the punch, although these two boats will be joining forces as part of Ireland’s entry into the Rolex Commodore’s Cup in a week’s time.

Farr 52 Chernikeeff 2 won the Coastal Race in the IRM division, giving her the class win ahead of Babbalaas, the best of the five competitive Farr 45s at this regatta. If the Europrix round-Europe race didn’t manage to take place this summer as had been planned, it has at least breathed a new lease of life into this 45-foot class, as owners are finally getting their money’s worth out of what is effectively an upscaled Farr 40.

IRC 0 and IRM were both close-fought battles this week, but there was no such drama in the other class to share their course, IRC 3, where Robin Aisher’s Yeomantix counted four wins to secure one of the clearest victories of the week. IRC 1 was won by the new J133 ‘WOW’ owned and skippered by George Sisk from The Royal Irish Yacht Club beating Maverick 2 by 6pts. One class that was expected to go the distance with a last-race showdown was the Cork 1720 class, but many of the top contenders made hard work of the final day, leaving Graeme Scott’s King Quick from Scotland to tie up victory with a race to spare. Unlike many competitors who treat the 1720 as their second class, the Scott family and the rest of the team have been hard at it for the past six years and now have the consistency to rewards those efforts.

One of the most popular wins of the week was in IRC Class 7, where Irish Paralympic representative John Twomey sailed his Sonar immaculately to beat his able-bodied rivals in a motley selection of small keelboats. It was the best possible send-off for Twomey and his team before heading off to the United States for his final regatta before the Paralympic Games in Athens this September.

Overall, it would be hard to say that the drizzly and at times foggy weather made this a classic Cork Week, but the regatta has so much in its favour that people will continue to come despite this. With over a thousand boats looking to compete but only a little over 500 actually granted entry, the close-knit community at Crosshaven are already looking towards another successful week in two years’ time.