Cork Week, 2006 In 2005 the Police Sport UK National Offshore Sailing Championships were won by Nottinghamshire Police. The winner of the championship qualifies to represent the British Police at a national yachting event during the following year. In July, 2006 the Notts Police Offshore team took part in Cork Week representing 'Police Sport UK'. This is a report on their week.
The above event was held between the 15th to 21st July, 2006.

The Nottinghamshire Police Team was at the event representing the British Police and Police Sport UK. (PSUK). The team flew to Cork and collected the boat on Saturday, 15th July. This was a Sunfast Sunsail 37ft Yacht with a team of 8.

As the racing did not start until Monday the team went for a practise sail on Sunday as this was the first time the team had been to Cork Week.

The racing was organised into classes, the Sunsail Fleet consisting of 13 boats with 12 making it to the start on each day. The event had over 400 boats taking part with most of the boats having their own starts.

A briefing was held on the Sunday evening with the skippers and navigators being given the racing instructions.
Our fleet was teamed up with the Gentleman's Class and Corporate Class. They had their own starts but sailed the same courses as the Sunsail Fleet. The race organisation was very good, with a sailing instruction booklet supplied to each skipper with details of what course you would be sailing on any given day with photographs of the starting vessels and how many miles they were away from the harbour area. This made it very simple to get to the start area on time with full details of the course to be sailed.

Monday.
We were sailing the Lisselan Harbour course, which was about 20 miles in length. We were the 2nd start which was late due to the lack of wind At about 11.30 we started downwind with the spinnaker up, the Police Team made a good start and led at the first mark and continued to lead from start to finish, at one point being about 20 minutes ahead of the 2nd yacht from the National Grid. The Police eventually finished 7 minutes ahead of the National Grid yacht on Sunsail 72 and over 1½ hrs ahead of the last yacht.

A good start to the series by the Police Team.

Tuesday.
More wind with the sun shining, today was the Trapezoid course with the 2 races planned.
Another good start with the Police first to the first mark and leading the fleet to the finish for the first race of the day.

It was now clear who, within the fleet, were the main contenders:- PSUK, National Grid and Agave Avengers.
Race 2, same course, the wind had dropped somewhat, making the boat difficult to set up with the large seas in relation to the wind strength, 5th to the first mark, by the end of the race the Police came in 3rd behind the National Grid and Agave Avengers.

Wednesday.
Lighter winds with a windward leeward course set. The wind was almost nothing. It was a surprise that the race officer decided to start the race as the boats were hardly achieving one knot in speed.
The wind kept coming and going with the Police Team getting to the first mark in 4th place, who took a place on the spreader mark and put up the spinnaker for the downwind leg to the finish. Agave avengers had a large lead at this point with National Grid and the Police chasing hard. National Grid sailed straight over the top and got into the lead with the Police closing in, about 100yds from the finish line Agave Avengers luffed up to try and stop the Police Team also going over them. A small tactical battle then commenced with the Police Team managing to beat them over the line with about a foot to spare, a good race for 2nd place.

Race 2. The wind had become even lighter; it took the Gentleman's Class 15 minutes to clear the start line.
We started with the boats drifting about with the speed indicator not registering. The Police Team went onto a port tack and appeared to be getting a good lead until the wind shifted, getting into the windward mark in 4th place. It was then downwind with spinnakers up to the finish, Agave Avengers went from 3rd place to 2nd as the Police team caught up with the leading 3 boats. The wind then died and the 3rd place boat Lloyds TSB managed to get to the finish first with a margin of about 6ft over Agave Avengers, Sunsail 69, Sunsail Kubernetes who had lead at the first mark came in 3rd with the Police a boat length back. National Grid achieved an 8th place.

Thursday.
The wind had increased with the fleet doing the Irish Examiner Coastal Course, the course expected to be about 22.5 miles in length.

A good start was made by most of the fleet into wind for about a mile, National Grid got to the first mark in first place with the Police 2nd, another mile fetch to the 2nd mark with the National Grid maintaining their 100yd lead. We then had an 11.5 mile downwind leg to the next mark with spinnaker up. The Police Team managed to pass National Grid after about 3 miles and then continued to sail away to the next mark where the race had been shortened by the race officer. The Police came in first by 5 minutes over Agave Avengers, Sunsail 67 came in 3rd with National Grid in 4th place.

The event was almost over for the Police Team as the discard had come in with 5 or more races sailed, for the Police Team to be beaten National Grid would have to win the last race with the Police Team coming 8th or worse, the Police Team could come no worse then 2nd even if they failed to take part in the last race.

Friday.
A good force 4 wind on an Olympic Course.
The Sunsail Fleet were started first with the Corporate Class 2nd and Gentleman's Class 3rd. one triangle and a sausage, it was 1.75 miles to the first mark. The Police Team got to the first mark in first place by 50 yds.
This was maintained down the spinnaker reach to the 2nd mark where they had a spinnaker tie up on the gybe. This was sorted but the lead had almost gone. By the 3rd mark the Police had a boat length on Agave Avengers and 10 boat length on National Grid. The second beat into the wind saw the Police Team stretch their lead to 200yds which was maintained down the run and the short beat into the wind for the finish. Police coming in 1st with Agave Avengers 2nd and National Grid 3rd. The result took National Grid from 2nd to 3rd overall by one point.

The prize giving was held at 1900 hrs Friday evening with the Police team flying back to Birmingham on Saturday morning.

First attempt at Cork Week, achieving first place in the Sunsail Class. The local media had run a story in relation to the Police Teams performance on the Thursday, generally commenting on the fact that the team were from a land locked county achieving good results in a coastal sport.

Overall comments.
The race organisation was generally very good. It was expensive to drink the beer and eat out. We understood that the price of everything had been increased by 30% for the week, this may have backfired on the organisers as they had expected over 600 boats to take part but had achieved only over 400 boats racing.

It is the first time as a team that the Police Team slept and ate all meals on the boat with team members taking it in turns to cook. The venue was excellent with 3 main beer tents which had different live bands on each night, there was also clothing shops, etc., and food outlets. The local town of Crosshaven was a small fishing type village which obviously geared itself up every 2 years to host the event.

The Team.

Pc Pete Walters, Skipper - Helm
Pc Paul Pilsworth, Mainsheet trimmer.
Pc John Austin, Grinders
Pc Rick Priestley, Grinders.
Retd Supt John Neaverson, Navigator.
Pc Nick Shaw, Mast hand.
Pc Helen Neaverson, Foredeck
Pc Simon Judge, Foredeck.
 

Report by Pete Walters. Results from the Cork Week website.