ORC and OMA unite to form new ORC Multihull Rule
by ORC Media 8 Nov 2018 08:10 EST
ORCmh will be used in the 2019 season for OMA's competitive class of performance cruising catamarans © Christophe Jouany
The Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) and the Offshore Multihull Association (OMA) are pleased to announce their partnership to develop a new handicap rule system called ORCmultihull, or ORCmh. This new system is intended to provide measurement, VPP rating and scoring tools for large performance multihulls, a new and exciting sector in offshore racing.
"We're very happy to work with ORC to help build the measurement and certificate generation process needed for this system," said Phil Lotz, president of OMA and Commodore of New York YC. "They have proven their abilities at handling the data for generating many thousands of certificates in the ORC Club, ORCi and ORC SuperYacht rules, so we look forward to having the same coherent level of administration brought to our system for fair and transparent handicapping to performance multihulls."
ORCmh will evolve from the MultiRule system, which OMA developed with help from the Sailing Yacht Research Foundation (SYRF). MultiRule uses on-the-water performance data, "cleaned" and analyzed by KND Sailing Performance, to produce boat performance curves (polars) as wind speed and wind angle vary. These curves in turn become the boat's rating and the Performance Curve Scoring (PCS) system can be used to reflect the large changes in multihull speeds through various wind speeds and angles.
"We have been using the MultiRule system now for 3 years and it has been working well for the OMA. I look forward to working with ORC to help build a VPP validated by our performance data," said Larry Rosenfeld, Technical Director of OMA and also on the Board of SYRF.
PCS was computationally difficult for sailors and race managers, but now with the creation of a mobile app developed by OMA and SYRF these calculations are done in seconds and are available in real time for sailors. This represents a breakthrough in bringing accuracy and accessibility to handicap racing. With the push of a button, the PCS calculator app produces the relative time allowance between your boat and your competition, giving you a powerful tactical tool on the race course.
"This is just a start of ORC's interest in assisting multihull sailors with a scientific rating system, and with OMA we are beginning at the top," said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC. "We look forward to working closely with Larry, KND, SYRF and others in this exciting new project. This is a difficult task, but we feel confident this will provide benefits to this class and the much broader multihull constituency."
The first regattas anticipated to use ORCmh will be in the upcoming season of events starting with the BVI Spring Regatta at the end of March 2019, followed by Les Voiles des St Barth in mid-April, Antigua Race Week in early May and Porto Cervo in June.
More information on OMA can be found on their website at www.offshoremultihull.org
More on ORC rating systems, ORC certificates and events can be found at www.orc.org