ORC World Championship in the USA

For the first time in 24 years, the ORC World Championship will be held in the USA on September 30-October 5 in Newport, RI. Hosted by New York Yacht Club, the 2024 event features inshore and offshore racing among 43 yachts that range in size from 30 to 52 feet in length.

Three classes are competing for separate ORC World Champion titles, along with that a Maxi Class of yachts 66 to 74 feet in length competing for a North American Champion title. ORC Classes B and C have been combined to produce both World Champion and North American titles in these classes. Awards will also be made for all-amateur Corinthian and all-Female teams.

“We have an active and vibrant community of offshore-capable racing yachts in the US,” said Matt Gallagher, Regatta Chairman. “The fleet at this event represents some of the most talented teams in the game and will be a quite suitable test for awarding ORC World Champion titles.”

Racing starts September 30 with an offshore race of 24-36 hours in length held in Atlantic waters south of NYYC’s Harbour Court venue. The exact course for each class will be announced prior to the start and will be based on the target completion times of the entries.

ORC’s Weather Routing Scoring (WRS), with wind and tidal current models provided in cooperation with PredictWind, will be used to score the two offshore races in the program. This method seeks to fairly score dissimilar boats that may encounter varied conditions of wind and current on their portions of the race course. Results from the offshore races will not be discardable in the final scores.

The Maxis begin their event with an inshore race series on October 1. For the ORC classes, inshore racing will be held October 2-4 before their final offshore race on October 5 to complete the competition. Inshore and near-shore race courses will be scored using ORC’s Polar Curve Scoring (PCS).

“The US has been a very important part of ORC history, in fact US Sailing was a founding member of ORC 55 years ago,” said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC. “We therefore look forward to having World Championship-level racing come back to the US after many years and wish all teams the very best in their preparations for next week.”

Event information – Race details – Entry list

Hosted by New York Yacht Club, the ORC World Championship will be held September 30-October 5 in Newport, RI. The event begins with an overnight race of roughly 36 hours in duration, followed with three days of buoy racing and one day of coastal point-to-point racing.

Source: ORC