Representatives of boat owners and sailors from the 41 nations around the world that use rating certificates from the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) met today in Singapore at the 55th edition of their annual Congress meeting. At this meeting a variety of important issues have been discussed and ratified that relate to the structure of the organization, its growth and development around the world, its financial health and budget plans for the future, reports from ORC’s Committees and approval of their recommendations for rule changes and policies for the coming year.
Following positive trends seen in the last several years, 2024 was a good year for ORC with modest growth in both the numbers of boats and certificates issued in numerous countries around the world. From 31 October 2023 to the same date in 2024 there were 14,328 ORC certificates issued, a 0.3% increase, and the number of boats receiving these certificates increased to 9221 boats, a 3.5% increase.
Besides providing ORC International, ORC Club, ORC Double Handed and ORC Non-Spinnaker certificates for Monohulls, Multihulls, Sportboats, and Superyachts, ORC this year also worked with the J Class to provide special ORCj certificates and ratings for their magnificent yachts. To assist with technical matters such as measurement, ratings and scoring, ORC technical staff provides on-site support at ORC World and European events, as well as many regattas for the Superyachts, Multihulls and J Class yachts.
The strength of the ORC system is in its Velocity Prediction Program (VPP) to use the latest scientific and technical tools to provide what’s needed for fair racing among boats of dissimilar design. A report from the International Technical Committee (ITC) from chairman Andy Claughton showed the ongoing improvement to the VPP based on user inputs on specific topics such as Headsail furlers, Non-manual power systems, expansion of the VPP to include 4 knots, effects of appendage surface areas, and the committee’s ongoing basic research on items such as improvement of downwind aero coefficients.
In total, the anticipated effects of VPP changes for 2025 on the 1800 designs in the ORC test is is a modest 0.4% decrease of the GPH ratings.
Perhaps the most exciting report given by Claughton was on the status of the Weather Routing Scoring initiative approved last year and developed and tested throughout 2024. 50 races were both officially and unofficially scored for race organizers and the software improved in cooperation with PredictWind.
Early in 2025 a web app is anticipated to become available for broader access to race organizers beyond just the ORC championship events. Guidelines will be developed on how to use this exciting new method to bring fair ratings to offshore races of 6 hour to 4 day durations, with the latter possibly being extended to longer durations as more testing is made in 2025.
“This is an exciting development for ORC,” said ORC Chairman Bruno Finzi. “Making this available as a web-based tool in cooperation with our partners at PredictWind opens up the possibility for its use in routing for all sailing boats, not just for getting ratings for a fleet of racing boats. We congratulate the hard work this team has put in this year for development of WRS.”
Yet another new and interesting application of the versatility and power of the ORC VPP is a class being developed called ORC Classics that may breathe new life into otherwise old and forgotten designs. Deputy Chief Measurer Nicola Sironi describes the vision for forming this "new" group:
"We would encourage Race Organizers to establish an “IOR” Division within their existing ORC fleets that is dedicated to boats with an Age date between 1970 and 1990, the IOR era. Many of these boats are still in commission, have a measured hull file, and are suitable for offshore races, but just a few of them keep actively racing, often getting rather poor results. A separate Class or Division dedicated to them will be an encouragement for them to keep racing, and motivate others to join races.
"The only requirement to belong to this group is the Age date - there is no need for any additional measurements or certification beyond what is required to obtain an ORCi or ORC Club certificate, so this is ready for immediate implementation. Boats older than the IOR era can also be included, when they have measured data available, and they comply with the category of any relevant safety rules for any given race."