One race and three new leaders today at ORC World Championship 2016

by ORC Media on 20 Jul 2016 High pressure today brought sunny summer weather to the ORC World Championship 2016, but also some long delays awaiting a fitful seabreeze to fill enough to hold one windward-leeward race in the afternoon.

Besides producing results that show new teams for the top of the leaderboard, this was the fourth and final inshore race to the Qualifying Series in Classes A and B to determine the cut for the Gold Fleet - one more offshore race will determine who will be in the top half of each class and be eligible to race for these two World Champion crowns.

In Class A the wind to the north was 8-11 knots, a bit stronger than the other two course areas, and allowed Yakimenko Vadim's TP 52 Freccia Rossa to stretch out to a comfortable victory of over a minute in corrected time, the largest margin in the regatta to date. This second victory has moved them to break a tie in points with Erik Berth's Swan 45 Tarok VII and take a slim one-point lead over Fredrik Alexandersson's Swan 45 Stell. Third in today's race was a team new to the top ranks: Axel Seehafer's Soto 40 Sportsfreund, tactically led by Danish match racing legend Jesper Radich.

Class A with its 13 entries is not subject to the split fleet format of the other two classes with their huge fleets of 59 boats each, who today continued racing in Gold and Yellow divisions on the Course B and Course C areas. In these races the scores are combined to produce overall standings in each class, and at the top of Class B is a new leader, Claus Landmark's Landmark 43 Santa, taking their second bullet of the series by nearly a minute in corrected time over a short 5.0-mile course.

'Its been hard racing in this fleet,' said Landmark, who was in Kiel in the 2014 Worlds and ultimately took a Silver Medal at that event. 'The racing is close and we have to stay focused to get good results.'

The two X-41's at the top of the Class B ranks yesterday - Aaro Cantell's Normet and Mati Sepp's Premium - slipped today in earning sixth place finishes in their divisions, while a sistership to Santa - Torkjel Valland's White Shadow - won their race division as Santa did, and closed to within a point of third place in the standings.

In Class C it was Jascha Bach's new Italia 9.98 Bachyachting Racing Team who won today's race in their division, followed closely by Alain Bornet's J/109 Jai Alai, who has been steadily climbing the ranks towards the leaders with each race. The other race winner was a proven Class C performer, 2013 European ORC Champion Sugar, Jaan Akerman's NM 38S, followed by the Airis team from Italy led by Cesare Bressan, the 2012 Worlds Class A Bronze Medal winner in Helsinki but racing here this year on a Melges 32. Yesterday's Class C leader Lance 12 - a new J/112E skippered by Bo Teichmann - took seventh today, moving them into second place in the overall standings.

Volvo Race veteran Bouwe Bekking is racing on Lance 12 and said this morning 'This is a new boat and we are still just learning it, but its really great fun to be here.'

In third in Class C is Michael Mollmann's X-37 Hansen, who actually tied with Adomas Janulionis's X-35 Keturi Vejai in today's race after a little over an hour of racing on their short 4.1 mile course sailed in only six knots of wind. Mollmann's boat has had some optimization work done with guidance from Maurizio Cossutti, designer of Sugar and other successful ORC designs.

Tomorrow's morning forecast is for a continuation of light air conditions, so race organizers have re-scheduled the start of the Offshore race tomorrow for 1400 local time when there is a promise of good breeze. Results from this race will be critical for some teams in the mid-rankings who need a good result to remain in the top half and keep fighting for their share of the championship medals to be awarded on Saturday.