2025 Garmin ORC World Championship starts tomorrow with Long Offshore Race
by Offshore Racing Congress 10 Aug 14:24 PDT
8-16 August 2025
After a final day of preparation, a practice race and opening ceremonies today, the crews in the assembled fleet of 65 teams from 9 nations entered in the 2025 Garmin ORC World Championship are ready for racing tomorrow, Monday August 11th, the first of six days of competition that concludes on Saturday August 16th.
The first start tomorrow will be at 10:00 local time for a long overnight offshore race that will vary in length for each of the three classes: 211 miles for Class A, 195 miles for Class B and 175 miles for Class C. These courses all have a short north-south lap in the bay north of Tallinn, then take each class on a roughly triangular-shape tour of the Gulf of Finland from Estonia to Finland then back to the Estonian coast.
The forecast weather looks perfect, with northwesterly to westerly winds varying from as low as 8 knots to as high as 18 knots throughout the race period, and also changing across the course area:
While the 1200 EEST forecast for Tuesday August 12th suggests gradually lightening winds during the second half of this race, this should not disadvantage the slower-rated boats in each class because of ORC's use of Weather Routed Scoring (WRS). In this method the ratings for each boat are determined by that boat's rated performance on the course as the forecasted weather changes for that boat while sailing from the start to the finish.
Tracking for each boat during the race is provided by TracTrac, with the following link: www.tractrac.com/event-page/event_20250808_ORCWorlds/3124
"This first offshore race and the shorter Coastal race later this week are very important," said ORC Chairman Bruno Finzi. "They test the teams skills that we do not see in the shorter course racing, such as seamanship, sail selections, navigation, strategy and endurance. These are all important traits we want to test at our ORC championship events, so the results for these races cannot be discarded from each team's score.'
The organizer of the Garmin ORC World Championship 2025 is the Kalev Yacht Club, along with Tallinn Olympic Sailing Center, Estonian Sailing Federation and the Offshore Racing Congress. The supporters of the regatta are Garmin, Tallinn City, The Ministry of Culture, SEB Eesti, Piletilevi PLG, Amserv, Pantaenius, Alter Marine, A. Le Coq, Liviko Distillery, Sportland Eesti, Telia Eesti, Coffee Address, Baltic Cruisers, GST Marine Boatshop, and SAR Tallinn.
Follow the 2025 ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia: