Extremely close inshore racing today at the 2024 ORC European Championship
by Offshore Racing Congress 14 Aug 2024 16:13 PDT
August 9-17 2024
Today's start to the inshore racing program of the 2024 ORC European Championship delivered what's expected at ORC championship events: highly-competitive close racing among pro and amateur teams alike sailing a wide variety of boat types. Races on the two course areas - one for Classes A and B and one for Class C - featured perfect 12-14 knot conditions that produced the closest possible racing held on windward-leeward courses.
The ability of the rating system and Polar Curve Scoring (PCS) to fairly rate and score boats of different types means that the results among well-sailed teams can be extremely close, and this was demonstrated today in all classes and in both of today's races. Winning margins and top-ten positions in each class were routinely resolved by only seconds in corrected time after an hour or so of racing.
For example, Karl Kwok's TP52 BEAU GESTE (HKG) is sailed by an exceptionally well-prepared team of pro-level sailors and being the fastest boat in Class A they see their competition boat-for-boat only at the starts. Yet in today's first race after 45 minutes of racing on the two-lap course their margin of victory was a mere 7 seconds over runner-up Johannes Wackerhagen's Kneirim 49 DESNA (GER), with Jens Kuphal's Landmark 43 INTERMEZZO only 20 seconds behind in third place in this race.
Interview with Jens Kuphal available here.
Similarly, in the slightly longer second race of a little over an hour's duration there was only 6 seconds in corrected time between INTERMEZZO and DESNA for second and third place, respectively.
Race results in Class B were dominated today by two wins for Tiit Vihul's modified X-41 OLYMPIC (EST), but these were even closer in corrected time: after an hour of racing in the first race Jonas Andersson's Farr 40 STORMTROOPER (SWE) was only 2 seconds back in second and Soren Junker's X-41 NEXUS (DEN) only another 2 seconds back in third. In fact, the top eight positions in this race were within only 1 minute in corrected time.
Interview with Tiit Vihul available here.
The fighting in Class C was even more pronounced, and only after two general recalls and the deployment of a black flag did the fleet behave enough to complete two races on their course area today. The team that had the best day was Patrik Forsgren's modified First 36.7 PRO4U (SWE) on scores of 1-2.5...yes, in the second race of 6 miles and about 1.3 hours of racing PRO4U actually tied Tarmo End's First 35 JAZZ (EST) in corrected time, this sharing points for second and third place.
Racing boats of these types gets no closer than this.
Interview with Linnea Floser & Zacharias Krafft - Team Pro4u available here
Inshore Windward-Leeward racing will continue on Thursday, August 15.
RACE 2 Top 3 teams:
Class A
1. BEAU GESTE TP52 - Karl Kwok (HKG)
2. DESNA Knierim 49 - Johannes Wackerhagen (GER)
3. INTERMEZZO Landmark 43 - Jens Kuphal (GER)
Class B
1. OLYMPIC X-41 mod - Tiit Vihul (EST)
2. STORMTROOPER Farr 40 - Jonas Andersson (SWE)
3. NEXUS X-41 - Soren Junker (DEN)
Class C
1. TEAM PRO4U mod First 36.7 - Patrik Forsgren (SWE)
2. SUGAR 3 Italia 9.98 - Ott Kikkas (EST)
3. DIA Neo 350 - Tauras Rymonis (LTU)
Race 3 Top 3 teams:
Class A
1. BEAU GESTE TP52 - Karl Kwok (HKG)
2. INTERMEZZO Landmark 43 - Jens Kuphal (GER)
3. DESNA Knierim 49 - Johannes Wackerhagen (GER)
Class B
1. OLYMPIC X-41 mod - Tiit Vihul (EST)
2. STORMTROOPER Farr 40 - Jonas Andersson (SWE)
3. NEXUS X-41 - Soren Junker (DEN)
Class C
1. KATARIINA II Arcona 340 - Aivar Tuulberg (EST)
2. JAZZ First 35 - Tarmo End (EST)
2. TEAM PRO4U mod First 36.7 - Patrik Forsgren (SWE)
Overall Results after 3 races.
Class A
1. BEAU GESTE TP52 - Karl Kwok (HKG) - 7
2. INTERMEZZO Landmark 43 - Jens Kuphal (GER) - 9
3. MADAME GRAY Landmark 43 - Sampsa Vehkamaki - 10
Class B
1. OLYMPIC X-41 mod - Tiit Vihul (EST) - 4
2. NEXUS X-41 - Soren Junker (DEN) - 9
3. DIXI 4 X-41 - Erik Stannow (DEN) - 20
Class C
1. TEAM PRO4U mod First 36.7 - Patrik Forsgren (SWE) - 7
2. SUGAR 3 Italia 9.98 - Ott Kikkas (EST) - 8
3. KATARIINA II Arcona 340 - Aivar Tuulberg (EST) - 11
Complete results for each class can be found here.
The 2024 ORC European Championship hosted by ÅSS Marina is a combination of offshore and inshore racing held daily until 17 August and is organized by the Finnish Offshore Racing Association and Åländska Segelsällskapet (ÅSS) under the authority of the Finnish Sailing Federation under the overall authority of the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC).
To follow the fleet in tomorrow's inshore races, use the link on the TracTrac website.
Photos from Pepe Korteniemi, Jascha Kuphal and Janis Spurdzins are available in albums on the ORC Flickr page.
Videos and interviews are available here.
All information about the event is available at orc.org/europeans2024 and www.orceuro2024.com
The ORC European Championships 2024, hosted by ÅSS Marina, is organized by the Finnish Offshore Racing Association, Åländska Segelsällskapet, and Offshore Racing Congress.