Three inshore races today in ideal conditions, more planned for tomorrow

Today the weather was the star in Day Three of the 2024 ORC World Championship held at New York Yacht Club at Harbour Court.

A rather gloomy forecast of a 6- to 8-knot easterly blossomed into 10 to 12 knots and what many locals called some of the best conditions of the season. These ideal conditions prompted prompted Principal Race Officer Tom Duggan to call for three Windward-Leeward races for all classes on course areas set outside Narragansett Bay, east of Brenton Reef.

In these races the scoreline of the current leaders – Victor Wild’s TP52 FOX 2.0 in Class 0, Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Botin 44 INTERLODGE IV in Class A and Marcin Sutkowski’s Grand Soleil 44P WIND WHISPER 44 from Poland – may imply they had easy pickings out there on the race courses, but FOX tactician Andy Horton said this was far from the truth.

“We went into today with the idea of sticking to the basics and staying away from trouble,” he said. “For the most part we achieved this, but we still needed all we had to get the margins needed to win these races. This was the culmination of a lot of hard work we put in this season to learn our boat and get the most out of every element: set up, sails, trimming, team work and positioning.

“And in a sense this has been a 4-year project to get here. Victor built this boat with the vision of participating in the Worlds planned for here 4 years ago but cancelled due to Covid, so we do have a long view of this. Fortunately it came together today in a really great day of sailing.”

While the INTERLODGE team are dominating the results in Class A, runner-up Paul Zabetakis on his Club Swan 42 IMPETUOUS said there’s a simple reason for this dominance: they are the fastest-rated boat in the class.

“It’s a little tough for us, because we are scrapping with several of our similar-sized rivals much more than they are,” he said, “And the margins between the rest of us are very close, just a matter of seconds.”

For example, in Race 4 after nearly an hour of racing IMPETUOUS lost third place to Oivind Lorentzen’s Botin 43 JAX by 15 seconds in corrected time. I third on their scoreline would put them one point clear of the tie they have now with Don Thinschmidt’s Ker 43 ABRACADABRA, and both are only one point ahead of Henry Brauer’s Club Swan 42 TIO LOCO.

In Class B there is a similar big, fast-boat advantage being enjoyed by WIND WHISPER 44, but the points and corrected time margins are much closer: for example, in the day’s first race the top four places were determined within only 10 seconds in corrected time after an hour of racing. Offshore race-winner John Brim on his Italia 11.98 RIMA98 and Andrew and Linda Weiss’s sistership CHRISTOPHER DRAGON XII actually tied on corrected time in this race, only 7 seconds behind the Poles, and another 3 second back in fourth was Bill and Jackie Baxter’s J 111 FIREBALL.

In Maxi racing, Jim Swartz’s Maxi 72 VESPER dominated the day with a picket fence of all firsts, but these too were not runaways: their margins of victory were only 17, 20 and 33 seconds in the first, second and third races of the day.

Racing in the 2024 ORC World Championship and Maxi North American Championship will continue tomorrow with more windward-leeward races planned in all classes.

Class 0: (6 boats)
1. FOX 2.0, Botin 52, Victor Wild, 2-1-1-1, 5pts
2. FINAL FINAL, PAC 52, Jon Desmond, 4-5-2-2, 13pts
3. WIZARD, Botin 52, Peter Askew, 1-4-4-5, 14pts
4. SUMMER STORM, TP52, Andrew Berdon, 5-3-3-3, 14pts
5. VESPER, TP52 52, David Team, 6-2-5-4, 17pts

Class A (19 boats)
1. INTERLODGE 44, Botin 44, Austin & Gwen Fragomen, 2-1-1-1, 5pts
2. IMPETUOUS, Swan 42, Paul Zabetakis, 5-7-2-4, 18pts
3. ABRACADABRA, Ker 43, Don Thinschmidt, 4-3-3-8, 18pts
4. TIO LOCO, Swan 42, Henry Brauer, 6-4-4-5, 19pts
5. ZAMMERMOOS, Swan 42, David Fass, 1-2-13-7, 23pts

Class B (14 boats)
1. WIND WHISPER 44, Grand Soleil 44, Marc Sutkowski, 5-1-2-1, 9pts
2. RIMA98, Italia 11.98, John Brim, 1-2.5-1-6, 10.5pts
3. CHRISTOPER DRAGON XII, Italia 11.98, Linda & Andrew Weiss, 25:44::37pts
4. FIREBALL, J 111, Bill & Jackie Baxter, 6-4-6-2, 18pts
5. THE ROCC, J/112, Al Minella, 4-8-3-5, 20pts

Maxi North American Championship:
1. VESPER, Maxi 72, Jim Swartz, 2-1-1-1-1, 6pts
2. BELLA MENTE, Maxi 72, Hap Fauth, 1-2-2-3-2, 10pts
3. TEMPTATION, J/V 66, Art Santry Oakcliff, 3-3-3-2-3, 14pts

Complete results are found here.

Positions of the entries in all races may be replayed on the TracTrac system here.

More information at nyyc.org/2024-orc-world-championship.

by Offshore Racing Congress