The ORC handicap rating system is the world’s largest, with >14,000 certificates issued in 40 countries around the world, and its signature regattas being the annual ORC World and ORC European Championships. These are highly-competitive week-long events and bring out some of the best boats and sailors in the big-boat racing world.
“With the US being the fastest-growing nation in the ORC system and New York Yacht Club being the host of last year’s ORC World Championship, the advent of a new ORC North American Championship series makes sense,” said Storm Trysail Rear Commodore Matt Gallagher. “We thought the popularity of Block Island Race Week and its ability to attract teams who race at a championship level, the mix of course and distance racing in the format, and the long heritage of development and support for ORC racing at Storm Trysail made for a perfect match for the start of this series.”
So far the championship concept is transforming into reality: with a wide variety of boat types competing in each class and after three days of racing on 7 Windward/Leeward courses the ORC 1, 2 and 3 classes are some of the most competitive in the fleet. The racing in the ORC 2 class in particular has been particularly tight: on average the corrected time margins between the top five finishers in each race has been only 21 seconds after just under an hour duration for each race…this is only 0.7%!
This is tight racing indeed, so by the end of racing on Friday the top three finishers in each class will have proven to be worthy recipients of their Gold, Silver and Bronze titles at this inaugural ORC North American championship.
This mid-week update was provided by ORC USA Representative Dobbs Davis.
More photos: https://stormtrysail.org/regattas/media-birw/
Videos on social media: instagram.com/biraceweek