The biennial Cork Week regatta enjoys a bigger reputation overseas than at home, writes David O'Brien

Take a small sleepy fishing village. Add water (well, the Atlantic ocean) and old-fashioned Irish charm. Stir in seven bars, three restaurants, 50 bands, 400 performers and 180 hours of entertainment. Bake in warm sunshine for one week every two years. Sprinkle with 7,000 high-earning visitors. This is the recipe for success at Cork Week regatta, an icon of Ireland's summer sport, with a bigger reputation overseas than at home.

Competitors come from the US, Hong Kong, Australia, France, Germany and Belgium. This year's regatta has attracted first-time entries from the Philippines, South Africa, Italy and Sweden but the mainstay of the biennial event is a huge representation from England, Scotland and Wales.

Cork Week, of course, is not the only regatta of its kind. But Cork continues to have a special mix that lives up to its billing as the number one fun regatta in the world. This year there are an expected 450 entries, 80 per cent from overseas, and they are heading here to race but also for the craic. In many respects Cork Week, when it first started in 1986, took its inspiration from the success of Cowes Week on the Solent but from the beginning Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC) organisers wanted to do more than ape a British event.

They saw a gap in the regatta market and took a bold decision to do away with convention and rewrite the rules for sailing regattas. They set about banning professional sailors from attending Cork at a time when regattas across Europe were suffering from the invasion of paid-to-sail crews. It was a situation that had left amateur skippers and crews, representing the majority of the sailing community, tired of heading home without any silverware.

The plan was risky, of course, because pros were an influential bunch. Banning them was especially problematic for a remote venue on the outskirts of Europe where the high costs of transporting crew and equipment could have kept many away. But the the "no-pro" rule, as it became known, has worked in Cork's favour. Amateur sailors embraced the idea and owners return to Crosshaven year after year to race against each other for a week of Corinthian fun.

And Cork went one better by going back out to the professional circuit and inviting pros to a special restricted class where they could race with each other.

In 2004, for example, it attracted some real professional glamour. American Roy Disney came to town, as did the German billionaire Hasso Plattner, both racing massive Z-86 racing machines around Cork harbour. It was a show-stopper.

It hasn't all been plain sailing. Four years ago the host club, the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC), was so intent on having a good time that it lost money on the enterprise. It's now on a firm financial footing again.

Around the same time, many Irish sailors began to think that Cork Week had become just the "The Solent on tour". Dublin sailors complained that the successful Crosshaven formula had been overcooked. They resented paying up to €500 to share a bedroom for the week. That too has been ironed out, with a wider range of accommodation now on offer.

But perhaps in the crush many Irish sailors forgot to appreciate just what they have on their own doorstep. Nowhere was this point more clearly made than in early June when the world's top offshore sailors called in unexpectedly to our south coast.

They came principally in search of wind in leg eight of the Volvo Round the World race. They found little wind, unusually, but before they left they wrote prose worthy of a Fáilte Ireland copywriter. In his log, navigator Simon Fisher wrote: "Our day started sailing in and out of the mist rolling down off the hills and, as the sun rose and the mist burnt off, it gave way to spectacular views of rolling green hills and a weather-beaten rocky coastline. With castles and towers stationed on each headland, it gives you the feeling of sailing through a scene out of Lord of the Rings." With endorsements like that, it's easy to see why Crosshaven will teem again with sailors and supporters for a festival that's more like Galway Races on water than a regular Irish sailing regatta.

Although Cork Week's not all about rubbing shoulders with serious money, it is hard to ignore the economic value of the event. Chairman Ian Venner reckons it is worth €10 million to the local economy. It's like Ireland v England at Lansdowne Road - in an otherwise sleepy fishing village.

Cork Week 2006 takes place at the Royal Cork Yacht Club, Crosshaven from July 15-21. For entry details, contact the Regatta Office, 021-4831179, entries@corkweek.com. See also www.corkweek.com