Looking back on the season of 2022, it has to be said that the East Coast keelboats had the edge on the Cork Harbour fleet in terms of national overall success in the majors, what with taking the best place in the Round Ireland Race and winning the ICRA “Boat of the Year” award – both achieved by the Evans brothers’ J/99 Snapshot – while also having a third share of the “Boat of the Week” trophy in Cork Week in the form of Ross McDonald’s successful helming of Atara to be tops in the big fleet 1720 Class.

But Cork sailors can draw hope of future success from other outstanding achievements, and over Christmas we had news from New Zealand of a Cork cruiser-racer coming to Dublin Bay and wiping the floor against a crack fleet, despite all her competitors being bigger boats.

Admittedly, it all happened 186 years ago. But success at this level endures forever, provided the engraved trophy somehow survives. Silverware is for keeps, but the maintaining of paper records from a busy regatta can sometimes become haphazard – particularly on a wet and windy day – while club minute books are only legally obliged to record the deliberations of the General Committee, but not those of the Sailing Committee.

LEAKING ROOFS AND THE PRICE OF POTATOES

This means that sailing historians, far from being able to access precise information on the winners of the annual regatta and how they won from formal club records, instead find themselves ploughing through distracting…