Two fingers to the rest of you… Irvine Laidlaw’s latest Highland Fling 18 painted a fine picture of modernity at this year’s Maxi Worlds in Porto Cervo, ripping past the largest supermaxis in many conditions. A warmer experience than her previous outing, a windy Round the Island Race in the UK, where she enjoyed a spectacular lap briefly interrupted by a nosedive during which she took on 4 tonnes of water when the front door was left ajar. There were only three multihulls at the Maxi Worlds this year, but scored under ORCmh the top two ended up tied with Fling taking it on countback from the equally fabulous Irens-designed Allegra
weather mark. Even though her boat speed was down to 5kt, that was also her VMG! The ORC Congress was an energetic few days. We are now man-
aging four VPPs: ORCi for the cruiser-racers, ORCsy tuned to accom- modate the diversity of the superyacht fleet, ORCmh for the multi - hulls and ORCj. ORCj was developed in collaboration with the J Class Association to take the burden of rating off their shoulders. All the fleets have had a successful season. The ORCi World
Championships, hosted by the New York Yacht Club in Newport, marked 24 years since these races had been held in US waters. The marquee races to Mackinac in the Great Lakes attracted large ORC fleets, and European championships, including a double- handed event, were held successfully in the Baltic. The Superyacht regattas started in Auckland in January and
ended in Barcelona as a warm-up show for the America’s Cup. Over 100 certificates are now issued and prospects look good with Shirley Robertson the new chair of the class association. For the first time multihulls competed at the Maxi Worlds in
Sardinia. Allegra and Highland Fling are the leading lights of the fleet and they enjoy close racing. VPP-based handicaps that change with the wind speed and point of sailing are essential to give even a small but diverse fleet an equal chance to win. The sailors now prefer its use in preference to a single All-Purpose handicap. The J Class enjoyed good racing in Palma and their world cham-
not be up to speed by the time you have to tack back again. So all the time you are fighting to get back up to speed. Watching
the J fleet racing in 6kt of wind was a lesson in induced drag management. On one beat we were comfortably in last place and the boat ahead crossed us and tacked right on our air. Under normal circumstances the way out would be to tack to
clear our air, but in this situation our opponent, while giving us dirty air, was only going half our speed. We gave a little ease on the sheets, accelerated a bit, and cruised through the wind shadow. This worked to such a degree that we ultimately had her safely lee- bowed. Still not at target speed she was forced into another tack and was never seen again. In the subsequent days we were treated to a fly-by from the
America’s Cup 75s. The America’s Cup has come a long way since the 1930s when the Js raced for the Cup, but induced drag is the same now as it was then, the unseen spectre at the feast. Through the lens of YouTube it didn’t seem there was much to
choose between the AC75s in terms of straightline speed, but the New Zealand boat lost less speed through the tacks. Back in the day, if tacking was not your thing you could mitigate the situation by heading straight to the layline. No such luxury is afforded the AC crews now, you have to tack at the boundary. While the difference in minimum speed was only a knot or two
there is no escaping that while you are going more slowly than your opponent two things are happening. One you’re losing ground, and two you have more drag which is making it harder to get back up to speed. If the boats are going around 30kt then a knot difference in speed is about 5% more induced drag. With no hull in the water that’s going to be a meaningful contribution to the total drag. The commentators were keen to talk about high modes and low
modes for the AC75s. Trying to hang in a high mode seems fraught with danger, slow speed, high induced drag, and you are only one bad wave away from a splashdown. With the J Class, however, there are no such worries: during one race Velsheda demonstrated the ultimate high mode, head to wind, jib half down, rounding the
pionships in Barcelona, using Polar Curve Scoring with a constructed course. Despite a lively discussion about the maths of this approach there was general agreement that ORCj delivered on its promises. ORC has a modest programme of research planned for the winter. During 2024 the ORC staff provided Weather Routing Scoring
(F-TCF for our US readers) for 48 events, 25 shadow scoring and 23 as the scoring method for offshore races. This provided valuable learnings about the race management process and a good database to assess how WRS compares to the single number approach. WRS seems more effective where there is a large spread of TCFs across the class. If the wind is dying or building as the race progresses the single TCF inevitably favours the early or late finishers, often by hours even for a modest 200-mile race. However, the psychological challenges for the sailors moving
away from a single number are legion – it’s tough to lose a race by 15 minutes when you would have won under the alternative single-number system. But in nearly all of the 50-odd races the WRS scoring was better at matching the recorded elapsed time with the predicted elapsed time. The collaboration between ORC and PredictWind which is central
to this system has developed further and now, where race organisers want it, a particular forecast for the locale can be used. As a matter of course the tidal currents are the highest resolution
available from PredictWind for the course area. For 2025 the ORC will use WRS for championship offshore races and also offer the service to yacht clubs. The ORC is building software to make ORC scoring methods more
accessible to organisers. Our hope is that, over time, sailors will appreciate that the ‘horses for courses’ effect inherent in single- number systems can be mitigated to a larger degree. I personally see this as a rational way to use improving performance prediction and weather forecasting to improve the equity of handicapping off- shore races. ‘Playing God’ is not the intention, but it’s encouraging to hear that our work is reaching those levels of competence. We have a challenging research agenda, but we have the budget
and skills to improve our handicapping methods to suit the different race and boat types. I’m optimistic about what next year might hold. Andy Claughton, Chairman International Technical Committee q
SEAHORSE 35
INGRID ABERY
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