After 24 to 30 hours of racing and sailing courses varying in length from 157 to 203 miles the fleet has now finished and the results in for the first race of the 2024 ORC World Championship held at New York Yacht Club at Harbour Court. These results are significant for all of the 43 teams competing because they are not discardable in the final score tallies.
Racing a 177-mile course in Class A, the first boat across the finish line off Fort Adams in Newport Harbor at 08:58:31 local time this morning was Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Botin 44 INTERLODGE IV.
Tactician Tony Rey said “It was a great night for racing. We kept moving all night and even though this was mostly windward-leeward sailing there were plenty of interesting parts of the course to provide a challenge. We feel a little lucky in finishing early because the wind seemed to be dying off, but we’ll see in the results.”
Next across the finish line at 10:02:06 was the first-to-finish Class 0 competitor, Peter Askew’s Botin 52 WIZARD, the first of five similar designs in this class who all finished their 203-mile course only minutes apart. Navigator Peter Isler confirmed this was a long hard-fought race.
“It was full-court press for the team all night,” he said, “and everyone took turns being in the lead. Isler explained that one key move was made by Victor Wild’s TP 52 FOX at the first offshore mark rounding southwest of Montauk.
“They slipped inside the pack, were first on starboard tack and held a narrow lead for most of that long [63-mile upwind] leg to Buzzard Tower. Then we caught a few shifts in the final few miles and managed to get the lead then.”
The next leg, 43 miles downwind to Cerberus Shoal, had another key decision point: which way to leave Block Island, which was placed squarely in the middle of the leg. With WIZARD and Jon Desmond’s Pac 52 FINAL FINAL we’re locked in battle to hold a narrow lead over the pack approaching the island, Isler decided to go north to pass the island at the northwest shoal at Buoy 1BI. FOX and David Team’s TP 52 VESPER followed this route while FINAL FINAL and Andrew Berdon’s TP 52 SUMMER STORM instead gybed to pass the south side of the island.
The north route worked out for WIZARD, but by only a few hundred meters as they popped out just ahead of SUMMER STORM and FINAL FINAL on the 9.4-mile port tack headsail fetch to Endeavor Shoal. From here it was back to Newport on a 29-mile upwind beat to the finish, where WIZARD covered their rivals except for SUMMER STORM who chose to break east from the pack to leave Block Island to port.
In corrected time WIZARD won the race in this class by 10:16, with FOX 2.0 second only 15 seconds ahead of Hanno Ziehm’s Marten 49 MOANA, which finished third.
Results were similarly close in Class A, where after 25 hours of racing David Fass’s Club Swan 42 ZAMMERMOOSwon the 177-mile race but only by 40 seconds in corrected time over INTERLODGE in second. And after over 26 hours of racing it was Bob Manchester’s J 133 VAMOOSE that corrected to third place, 12 minutes behind INTERLODGE. Manchester’s team was also the top of three all-amateur Corinthian teams in this class of 19 entries.
Today’s first-to-finish entry in Class B was the reigning ORC World Champion team from last year’s event in Kiel, Germany: Marcin Sutkowski’s GS 44 WIND WHISPER 44. Navigator Aksel Magdahl said this race was “Very interesting. Even though the wind was fairly steady, there were many interesting options to consider with the local currents in the area. We tried to keep our eyes on the locals who we knew would know this area very well.”
Indeed they did, as shown in the results: John Brim’s local-based Italia 11.98 RIMA98 won this race with 13:04 in corrected time to spare over their runner-up sistership, Andrew and Linda Weiss’s Italia 11.98 CHRISTOPHER DRAGON XII. Another Western Long Island Sound-based team – Al Minella’s J 112 THE ROCC – finished third, 2:29 behind DRAGON and 7:20 ahead of WIND WHISPER in fourth.
Another important feature of this race is that it was the first use of ORC’s Weather Routing Scoring in an full-crew ORC World Championship event. This innovative method produces the most equitable handicap ratings possible given the changes in weather and currents during long races.
“Our team has worked hard this year to test this method and we’re very pleased with the results,” said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC. “In this race the predicted times from the routing and the elapsed times were very close – mostly within 5% – which helped produce very close fair results in the race scoring.”
Today was also the start of racing in the 2024 ORC North American Maxi Championship, where windward-leeward races were held south of Newport on a course area just east of Brenton Reef. After an hour of racing on a 9.4-mile course Hap Fauth’s Maxi 72 BELLA MENTE won Race 1 by only 20 seconds over Jim Swartz’s Maxi 72 VESPER, with Art Santry’s J/V 66 TEMPTATION another 1 minute back in third.
Race 2 was run on a longer 11.6-mile course and was won by VESPER by a margin of 1:20 over BELLA MENTE, with TEMPTATION in third by another 2:55.
Racing in the 2024 ORC World Championship and Maxi North American Championship will continue tomorrow with two windward-leeward races planned in all classes.
Today’s highlights video of the ORC Long Offshore Race is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXhS9hRUqc.
Class 0 (6 boats): (Place, Boat, Make, Skipper, Corrected Time): 1. Wizard, Botin 52, Peter Askew, 24:19:05; 2. Fox, Botin 52, Victor Wild, 24:29:21; 3. Moana, Marten 49, Hanno Ziehm, 24:29:36.
Class A (19 boats): 1. Zammermoos, Swan 42, David Fass, 24:48:34; 2. Interlodge 44, Botin 44, Austin & Gwen Fragomen, 24:49:14; 3. Vamoose, J/133, Bob Manchester, 25:01:18; 4. Abracadabra, Ker 43, Don Thinschmidt, 25:02:06; 5. Impetuous, Swan 42, Paul Zabetakis, 25:04:10.
Class B (13 boats): 1. Rima98, Italia 11.98, John Brim, 25:31:33; 2. Sleeper, J/105 mod., NEKA Sailing, 25:38:39; 3. Christopher Dragon XII, Italia 11.98, Linda & Andrew Weiss, 25:44::37; 4. The ROCC, J/112, Al Minella, 25:47:36; 5. Wind Whisper 44, Grand Soleil 44, Marc Sutkowski, 25:54:56.
Maxi North American Championship: 1. Vesper, Maxi 72, Jim Swartz, 2, 1, 3 points; 2. Bella Mente, Maxi 72, Hap Fauth, 1, 2, 3 points.
Complete results are found at: https://data.orc.org/public/WEV.dll?action=index&eventid=vlcxi.
Positions of the entries in the Long Offshore race and Maxi Class races may be replayed on the TracTrac system at this link: https://tractrac.com/event-page/event_20240927_ORCWorldCh/3039
More information on the entries, race documents, scoring, schedules of events, media resources and more may be found on the event website at https://nyyc.org/2024-orc-world-championship.
