ORC World Championship - Long postponement worth the wait

by ORC Media on 7 Aug 2014 A long postponement today was worth the wait on the third day of the 2014 ORC World Championship, as an 8-10 knot easterly seabreeze built up in the afternoon from being flat calm in the middle of the day, allowing race managers from Kieler Yacht-Club on all three courses to conduct three races each. Conditions were so good that the last of these races was a three-lap windward-leeward course, giving teams more challenges in the mark roundings and able to play some more with the oscillating shifts on the course.

On Course A among 29 boats in this class Claus Landmark in his Landmark 43 Santa from Norway continued his perfect record by winning the first two races of the day and a second in the third race to thus vault into a commanding lead in the class. Only Heinz-Peter Schmidt's GP42 Silva Neo from Germany, Ole Martin Vordahl's Cookson 50 Camilla from Norway and Alberto Rossi's TP 52 Enfant Terrible from Italy have been able to break into the top ranks of the class among the racer/cruisers, although Rossi, the 2011 and 2012 ORC World Champion, finally managed a win in the third race.

In Class B among its 58 entries there is no such domination of the results, with numerous ties in corrected time (the second race today had actually two ties) and race winners spread among many teams. These included Lars Ive's Danish XP 38 Soldier Blue, Mati Sepp's Estonian X-41 Premium, Ralf Lessig's German XP 44 Xenia, Holger Streckenbach's German X-42 Imagine, and Ola Sandel's Swedish First 40 Karukera, who won two races on the day.

And in Class C, it is a similar situation for the 66 boats in this class, but with corrected times that are among the closest in the event: Among the winners is Aivar Tuulberg's Estonian Arcona 340 Katarina II who made the long journey back from Valencia at the ORC Europeans one month ago to participate here, and claimed his first race victory today. Others include another team who traveled north from the Med: Alessandro Consiglio's First 35 South Kensington. Last year's Class C ORC European champion Sugar 2, an Estonian NM38 helmed by Erki Melts, won the second race and is staying at the top in the standings, while Michael Mollman's Danish X-37 Hansen had their best race in also winning their group in the second race and the Swedish team on Patrik Forsgren's modified Beneteau 36.7 Team Pro4U repeated a race win they also earned on Monday.

But the best team of the day in Class C was Giuseppe Giuffre's modified M37 Low Noise from Italy, reigning ORC European Champion who came up from Valencia as well, in having two second places and one first today.

Among the competitors in Class B and C, this is the last day of inshore racing before tomorrow's second offshore race and the determination of who will be the top 30 teams to advance to the Gold Fleet on Friday and Saturday's final two days of racing to determine the new champions in those classes.

And once seven races are completed on Friday, discards will be allowed which may further re-shuffle the standings in all Event website