First-ever ORC North American champions crowned at Block Island Race Week 2025
by Offshore Racing Congress 27 Jun 2025 23:11 PDT
June 22-27, 2025
Block Island Race Week 2025 © Stephen Cloutier
After completing the full schedule of races - 9 in the ORC 1 class and 10 in the ORC 2 and 3 classes - three new ORC North American Champion teams have been crowned on Friday at the Storm Trysail Club's 31st biennial Block Island Race Week.
In ORC Open Class 1 the reigning ORC Class 0 World Champion team, Victor Wild's TP52 FOX, prevailed throughout the week by winning all but the first race of the series and are therefore declared the 2025 ORC North American Champions for this class. Sailing with Wild were team members Peter Henderson, Santiago Lange, Kelvin Harrap, Chris Hosking, Scott Nixon, Brett Jones, Orrin Starr, Jareese Finch, Dean Curtis, Aidan Naughton, Chris Brittle, Bradley Mclaughlin, Dylan Whitcraft and Nacho Postigo.
Winning Silver was Andrew Berdon's TP52 SUMMER STORM 52, with Øivind Lorentzen's Botin-designed Brooklin Boat Yard 43 JAX winning Bronze.
"We had a good fight against SUMMER STORM in the 2024 Newport ORC World Championship and once again, here they have been fantastic competitors and made us work really hard for every single point," said Postigo, navigator on FOX. "I think the ORC rating system is doing a great job, and I am happy to see how well the USA sailing community is embracing the system, and how the different race committees are adapting it perfectly to the needs of the different fleets and racing venues. I would say it's a total success."
With a similar dominance among the 9 entries in ORC Class 3, Robin Team's J122 TEAMWORK by won 7 of 10 races in this class and is the new Class 3 ORC North American Champion. Sailing with Team were Kevin Ryman, Matt Welborn, Camden Bowdren, Paul Luisi, Jeff Riedle, sons Adam and Alston Team, and Jonathan Bartlett.
Jeff Johnstone's team on his brand new J/40 DOV earned Silver medal titles, while Andrew & Linda Weiss's Italia 11.98 CHRISTOPHER DRAGON XII won Bronze.
"Our crew has been together racing for 20 years," said Team, "and we know and trust each other so well we really don't talk much on the race course."
Tactician Jonathan Bartlett said the same, explaining "We have an all-amateur team yet the crew work is flawless, and the preparation of the boat and the program is impeccable. This empowers everyone with the confidence to win right out of the box."
Earlier this season the team modified the rudder to be slightly larger to give more control in windy reaching and downwind conditions. Team said this upgrade has worked well for them, particularly in yesterday's breezy conditions in the Round the Island Race.
While there was one dominant team for most of the week among the 13 entries in ORC Class 2, the final outcome in the fight for the Gold was only going to be determined in today's last two Windward/Leeward races of the series.
With a win in yesterday's Round the Island Race and a strong scoreline throughout the rest of the week, David Faas's Swan 42 ZAMMERMOOS had amassed what would have seemed like a comfortable 11-point lead over their nearest rival, Tom Rich's GP 42 SETTLER, coming into today's final races. Yet every team in the top four of this class had won at least one race in the series, so tactician Seadon Wijsen said they could not make any assumptions and just stick with the same conservative game plan they used with success all week.
"This was the largest ORC class in the event, and we knew with all the similar-sized boats on the course there was going to be plenty of opportunities for trouble," he said. "So in most of our starts we favored being at the pin end so we had room to breathe and play our own game and find our own lanes on the first beat. There were times when we could have pushed it harder but opted to duck rather than tack in close quarters at the marks just to stay out of trouble."
Another aspect of the team's effective approach to race management was to draw on Wijsen's decades of experience racing on San Francisco Bay, where deciphering the tidal currents is as important as the wind. This came into play in today's race courses which were positioned for the easterly breeze and had strong currents wrapping around the southwest side of the island.
"I recognized there was a tide line crossing the course near the start of the last race and chose to stay to its left to remain in favorable current," Wijsen said. "Everyone else went right and we gained a lot on the fleet without having to mix it up with them in any high-risk situations."
Wijsen is new to this veteran crew and credited their win to solid team work, strong focus on trimming and speed, and flawless preparation of the boat for the tough week of racing. For example, yesterday when they discovered that their carbon headstay had frayed and needed to be removed, they quickly retrieved and installed their old stainless headstay, re-tuned the rig and were ready to race again today.
In addition to Fass and Wijsen, the new ORC Class 2 North American Champions are Angus Manion, Jamie Gurnell, Daniel Shaffer, Robert Masini, Chris Pearson, Garrett Connelly, Reid Secondo, Jason McShane, and Michael McClung.
Winning Silver medals in Class 2 was Tom Rich's team on SETTLER and Bronze medals were awarded to James Coffman and the team on his Swan 45 GEMINI II.
"This edition of Block Island Race Week was a fantastic start to our new annual ORC North American Championship series," said Storm Trysail Club Rear Commodore Matt Gallagher, who is also a Vice-Chairman of the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC). "We are pleased that already we have our next North American Championship event confirmed to be at the Rolex Big Boat Series at St Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco in September 2026, and invite all eligible ORC racing yachts to attend."
Overall Results: (top three in each class)
ORC 1
1. FOX (USA 55052) - Botin TP52 - Victor Wild - 2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 = 10 pts
2. SUMMER STORM 52 (USA 520) - TP52 - Andrew Berdon - 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 = 17 pts
3. JAX (USA 2022) - Brooklin Boat Yard - Øivind Lorentzen - 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 = 27 pts
ORC 2
1. ZAMMERMOOS (USA 4224) - Club Swan 42 - David Fass - 1-2-2-4-2-2-3-1-4-2 = 23 pts
2. SETTLER (USA 8668) - GP 42 - Thomas Rich - 2-3-1-2-9-1-4-6-2-1 = 31 pts
3. GEMINI II (USA 45454) - Swan 45 - James Coffman - 6-1-3-3-1-5-1-2-8-9 = 39 pts
ORC 3
1. TEAMWORK (USA 52939) - J/122 - Robin Team - 1-1-1-1-2-1-1-2-1-3 = 14 pts
2. DOV (USA 61878) - J/40 - Jeff Johnstone - 2-2-3-3-1-2-2-5-6-7 = 33 pts
3. CHRISTOPHER DRAGON XII (USA 2277) - Italia 11.98 - Andrew Weiss 4-5-6-2-3-4-6-1-3-2 = 36 pts
For more information about the 31st Block Island Race Week, visit stormtrysail.org/regattas/blockislandraceweek.