The weather was the star on Day Three of the 2024 ORC World Championship held at the New York Yacht Club 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.
The scoreline of the current leaders—Victor Wild’s TP 52 Fox 2.0 (above) in Class 0, Gwen Fragomen’s Botin 44 Interlodge IV in Class A and Marcin Sutkowski’s Grand Soleil 44P Wind Whisper 44—may imply they had easy pickings on the racecourse, 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, teamwork and positioning.
“And, in a sense, this has been a four-year project to get here. Victor built this boat with the vision of participating in the 2020 Worlds planned for here 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 (at left, Sail No. 4206) 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.”
In Race 4, after nearly an hour of racing, Impetuous lost third place to Oivind Lorentzen’s Botin 43 Jax by 15 seconds of corrected time. A third on its scoreline would've 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 (right), but the points and corrected time margins are much closer: for example, in the day’s first race the top four places were determined by 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 two windward-leeward races planned in all classes. Buoy racing is also planned for Thursday and Saturday with a short distance race scheduled for Friday. The regatta will conclude with an awards ceremony Saturday evening.