ORC
When someone wants to win at any cost sailing is still not particularly well geared up to deal with it. From small lead correctors made of painted polystyrene in a one-design to water tanks and pumps installed to add righting moment offshore, as in the case of the One Tonner I-Punkt (bottom) or to create a radically different trim for measurement (Scugnizza, below) – when faced with this extreme level of ‘determination’ then local measurers would benefit hugely from some on-call support from further up the food chain
A brave new Worlds
Now that the word is out, speculation may start in earnest among Seahorsereaders on what to expect in a combined ORC-IRC World Championship in 2018; it’s perhaps happenstance that even prior to the agreement made at World Sailing in November, the venue was already set for an individual ORC event at The Hague in 2018, a fortuitous location where boats accustomed to ORC racing to the east and IRC racing to the west can easily meet halfway for a week of racing in an all-new event.
There are obviously many questions that remain at this early stage. As well as a scoring solution (see our editor’s suggestions in the February 2017 issue), there are other details laid out in ORC’s Green Book standards for championships to be reviewed by a work- ing party to be formed by ORC, RORC and the Hague organisers. A week of racing following two or three days of measurement is usual for ORC championships, and it may be the same for the 2018 event – this is about the limit for most regattas these days. The working party will also debate the inshore/offshore balance; many IRC events involve a large offshore quotient while ORC events are mostly inshore focused. But there is an unusual extra consideration in this bit of the discussion, that of running races with large fleets close to the world’s busiest shipping lanes...
Measurement and scoring are the big questions: will entries require ORCi and/or IRC Endorsed certificates? And what about scoring? ORC World expects Time-on-Distance Performance Curve Scoring (PCS), a complex system where ratings change with course type and wind speeds; but IRC users are accustomed to a simple one number Time-on-Time system.
Then again, those ORC fleets in the Netherlands do not use Performance Curve Scoring… but score using a much simpler Time- on-Time system with three single numbers tailored to three wind ranges – the ‘triple number system’. This is due in part to the desire for simplicity but also because the strong tides in Dutch waters wreak havoc on Time-on-Distance scoring.
Might this be adopted? Expect resistance from the ORC purists, 28 SEAHORSE
who will claim that only full Performance Curve Scoring will yield reliable results.
The formation of classes and declaration of winners also need agreement: ORC has used a three-class format for a few years now, with titles awarded to the winners in each division. IRC sailors have expressed interest in distilling this all down to a single overall world champion, but it’s hard to imagine how to do this objectively. Expect more resistance from those ORC ‘purists’. So the working party will need to be composed of clever fellows with open minds, who will look at this objectively and in the spirit of co-operation, and combine their collective experience to produce what should by all accounts be a terrific inaugural event. In the meantime there is this year’s ORC Worlds to plan for, where the organisers from a consortium of clubs around Trieste have done well to already attract over 100 entries. An early entry in Class C is Scugnizza, controversial winner in that class at the 2016 European championship in Greece. The mea- surement protest lodged against this boat has evolved into a more serious matter amid claims that special integral aft tanks were filled with water for measurement but emptied for racing. There will shortly be a hearing on the matter in Athens before an international jury. ORC remains firm on pursuing this matter vigorously and ORC chairman Bruno Finzi will attend the hearing in person. Dobbs Davis
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LIONHEART IMAGERY
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