2025 Garmin ORC World Championship Long Offshore Race
by Offshore Racing Congress 12 Aug 13:42 PDT
8-16 August 2025
After their start yesterday at 1000 local time the 64 teams entered in the Long offshore race, powered by Piletilevi | PLG, a wave of finishers from all three classes started arriving together about 1200 local time at the finish line in this first race of the 2025 Garmin ORC World Championship.
Race managers sent each of the three classes out on courses of varied length in the Gulf of Finland and nearly all finished within the expected target elapsed times of 26-30 hours. Wind conditions during this race were an ideal test of their offshore skills, varying from light air patches of less than 5 knots to over 20 knots. Wind angles for the fleet also provided a suitable variety, from long upwind beats to high-speed reaches and long downwind runs.
In Class A Niklas Zennstrom's Carkeek Fast 40+ RAN (SWE) is not the fastest-rated boat yet nonetheless led that fleet around the race course from nearly the start to the finish. The team had a narrow 4.5 minute corrected time lead 17 hours into the race at the Glotovi turning mark before making the final 9-hour eastward mostly downwind journey back towards the finish at Tallinn.
The innovative tracker technology from TracTrac provided both accurate position and rating data during race and therefore helps tell the remainder of this story of the race.
It was here at Glotovi that the fleet split from their leader, opting to gybe and remain further offshore while RAN stayed further south along the Estonian coast. Despite hitting some light air on their track, RAN still retained their actual and corrected time lead up until they hit a light patch while several miles west of the island of Naissar, whereas the fleet that was further offshore to the north was enjoying more solid breeze.
This is when Lehti's GP 42 MERCEDES BENZ (FIN) took the corrected time lead, with Maciej Gnatowski's HH 42 SCAMP THREE (POL) also coming on fast...both were over twice as fast as RAN who remained stuck in their hole off Naissar trying to get north into more breeze and still remain ahead of the approaching pack. They just managed to get out in front of them on the final approach to the next turning mark at Uusmadal but then hit another hole just before the turn at the mark while MERCEDES BENZ and SCAMP THREE quickly closed the gap charging ahead at over 10 knots powered by the approaching breeze from the west.
Here is where another team came into the top three in corrected time - Lars Hidde's MAT 1220 PURE (GER) - also driven by that approaching stronger breeze. On the final few miles of the race into Tallinn Bay RAN sped up again to over 13 knots in speed, re-powered by the fast reaching angles to the final turning mark at the Katarina Quay buoy before the final downwind run to the finish and elapsed time victory.
Yet the winning margin was to be too little to overcome the time allowances owed to the approaching MERCEDES BENZ and SCAMP THREE, who also played these last two legs to the finish line exceptionally well, passing the Finns on the reach. They even accelerating on the final run into the finish at over 14 knots of speed to take the Class A crown.
"Coming here, we never expected to start the regatta with such a good result," said Gnatowski. "I think the biggest challenge in this race was keeping up with the rest of the fleet. The boat is optimized for reaching legs, so when we saw how the course was structured, we knew that about three-quarters of the race would be tough for us. Just keeping pace with the others was the main goal. That's why it's such a humbling and proud moment to win the first race!"
It was a similar story for the highly-competitive Class B fleet, which had a similar but slightly shorter 195 mile course for the 22 entries in this class. About 4.5 hours into their race just west of Naissar while on the long upwind leg to the lighthouse at Bengtskär, Jesper Radich on his XR 41 FORMULA X (DEN) had a narrow lead among the other there XR 41's in the race and some past champions sailing their previous generation X-41's. Yet their position relative to another rival prompted an important decision for them at this stage of the race.
"We were doing well with [Marcin Sutkowski's Grand Soleil 44P] WINDWHISPER (POL), which being a large boat and well-sailed we were happy about this on the long upwind leg," said Radich. "When they split from the lead group and went north we decided we had to go with them because being the four-time champion in this class we knew they would be tough for the rest of the regatta and we did not want to risk them getting away from us in a split."
This decision paid off for them because 5 hours later not only had they managed to maintain this narrow lead on the reigning class champion, they also came out just ahead of the group that went south, led by Martin Estlander's X-41 XINI FREEDOM (FIN). With the pack leaders in close contact at the lighthouse, FORMULA X rounded just ahead then stretched that lead on the long reach by almost two miles ahead of WINDWHISPER and 3.5 miles ahead of XINI FREEDOM at the turn at Glotovi.
After racing 33 other teams on their 174 miles race on the Class C course, Ott Kikkas's Italia 9.98 SUGAR (EST) also had close racing with numerous lead changes among their closest rivals, yet still managed to emerge as the only past ORC World Champion in the fleet to prevail in this first race of the series.
"It was a great race for us: long and tough," said Matteo Ivaldi, tactician on SUGAR. "We did a really good job at the start, keeping our opponents close to us and eventually passing them along the rest of the race. It's for sure a great way to open the Worlds, but from tomorrow we will sail around the buoys with lighter wind and a new kind of game will begin: stay tuned!"
After a much deserved rest tonight, the teams will reconvene tomorrow on two course areas in Tallinn Bay to start the Inshore races powered by Amserv. This phase of the competition will featured windward-leeward racing on courses designed to be a little over one hour in length and is usually the most exciting for spectators following on the water and on shore using the TracTrac system due to the close boat-for-boat tactical combat on the water. Two races are planned with the starting sequences due to begin at 1200 EEST.
Afterwards at 1800 will be a Daily prize-giving held on the stage at the Race Village followed by an after sail chill with DJ Liisi Voolaid at the lounge and live entertainment from The Mood Duo.
Results of Long offshore race powered by Piletilevi | PLG:
ORC A
- SCAMP THREE (HH 42, POL) - Maciej Gnatowski - 1.0 point
- MERCEDES BENZ (GP 42, FIN) - Jani Lehti - 2.0 points
- PURE (MAT 1220, GER) - Lars Hidde - 3.0 points
ORC B
- FORMULA X (XR 41, DEN) - Jesper Radich - 1.0 point
- DIXI 5 (XR 41, DEN) - Erik Stannow - 2.0 points
- eXciteR (XR 41, GER) - Jens Kuphal - 3.0 points
ORC C
- SUGAR (Italia 9.98, EST) - Ott Kikkas - 1.0 point
- GARMIN TEAM PRO4U (First 36.7 mod, SWE) - Patrik Forsgren - 2.0 points
- KATARIINA II (Arcona 340, EST) - Aivar Tuulberg - 3.0 points
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.
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