The 54th meeting of the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC), held Nov. 10-14 in Malaga, Spain, finished with a review of 2023 activity and descriptions of new initiatives and innovations in technical and support services for offshore sailing.
The ORC is an international organization that governs and develops rules for offshore yacht racing.
The rating system for 2023 issued 13,525 certificates in 41 countries worldwide through the end of September and is on track to match or exceed the 14,789 certificates administered in 2022. This total would make ORC the world’s most extensive measurement-based rating system.
Besides providing rating services for all sizes and types of monohulls (racers, cruiser/racers, superyachts and sportboats), ORC launched the new ORC Multihull rule system this year.
The introduction of new Double-Handed championship events last year continued in 2023 with a World Championship in Barcelona and a European Championship in Denmark. The growth and popularity of DH sailing is expected to continue in 2024.
Superyacht sailing has recovered from pandemic fallout and has become popular again, with new technical innovations in rating and scoring. For 2024, the J Class will also use ORC analytical tools for their class racing.
According to ORC, a new ORC Classic division is also being developed to meet the requirements of older groups of boats that operate VPP-based racing. These include yachts designed and built before 1950, classic yachts from 1950 to 1973 and IOR yachts from 1970 to 1995.
Classic division project manager Nicola Sironi reported that thousands of boats in the ORC database are from these eras. Therefore, modern ORC rating tools can resurrect information on these designs.
In 2023, ORC underwent a significant revamp of the organization’s website and branding initiatives, with easier access and greater clarity to features on mobile and desktop outlets. In 2024, ORC’s Sailor Services website will undergo a comparable restructuring to improve access to the online self-service system used to build scratch sheets of time allowances, ORCi and ORC Club test certificates, Target Speeds and polar performance Speed Guides.
ORC aims to provide a technical and rational system to rate the wide variety of boat types for fair racing. The ORC’s International Technical Committee (ITC), chaired by Andy Claughton, is responsible for this. The ITC also is responsible for technical aspects related to the ORC’s handicap systems, rules and measurement processes. The committee plays a key role in ensuring the fairness and accuracy of the ORC’s rating systems and rules for offshore yacht racing. This year, ITC proposed improvements to the system based on their research in aero and hydrodynamics, along with analyzing ideas suggested through the submission process.
For 2024, ITC has proposed improvements in how gear weight, de-powering of headsails and headsails set flying will produce more accurate ratings. Yet the whole fleet’s change in All-Purpose Handicap (APH) ratings will change very little – for most boats less than 0.25%.
A notable innovation from ITC is the development of weather routing scoring, where a boat’s time allowance against her competitors will be calculated using a predicted elapsed time based on weather routing each vessel around the course. Weather routing scoring gives competitors the full benefit of the ORC system to provide scoring that reflects the boat and race conditions.
“This is a game-changing development in the sport,” said Bruno Finzi, chairman of ORC, in a statement. “We will continue to develop this system in 2024, but this represents a tremendous step forward to allow boats of different sizes and speeds to be finally rated and scored fairly based on the predicted weather they encounter on the racecourse. The goal will be to make this system widely available for the entire offshore community in 2025.”
Reports from other committees outlined changes in rules and policies on topics ranging from measurements, rating and certificate processing, future ORC championship events, promotional activities and developments and innovations in race management.
