ORC World Champions Crowned After Long Series

Victor Wild’s Fox 2.0 sails into Newport Harbor to complete the opening day’s long distance race at the ORC World Championships hosted by the New York YC. Paul Todd/Outside Images

After six days of competitive inshore and offshore racing within three classes, two new and one returning team have been crowned ORC World Champions at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court. These three teams demonstrated an exceptional level of preparation, practice and eventual execution to prevail after six days of intense inshore and offshore racing among the 43 entries with top-level sailors from throughout the United States and around the globe.

Two North American Champion titles have also been awarded among Maxi class yachts competing in their own series and the entries that were originally planning to compete in a Class C, but were folded into racing in Class B.

The final day of racing today was spectacular: 10 to 12 knots of northerly breeze in flat water and under sunny skies produced some of the closest inshore racing of the week, a fitting end to a highly competitive world championship regatta.

On Day 5 of the ORC Worlds the fleet was sent on a shorter day-long distance race. Paul Todd/Outside Images

The new 2024 ORC Class 0 World Champions are those that raced on Victor Wild’s TP 52 Fox 2.0. This team dominated this new class—first introduced to the ORC Championships this year—by winning five of seven races, enough to build an insurmountable 9-point lead overall. The silver medal position went to Peter Askew’s Botin 52 Wizard, and bronze to Andrew Berdon’s TP52 Summer Storm.

The Fox 2.0 team included Andy Horton, Harry West, Chris Hosking, Cooper Dressler, Dean Curtis, Graham Post, Jareese Finch, Kelvin Harrap, Maciel Cicchetti, Ignacio Postigo, Orrin Starr, Santiago Lange, Scott Nixon, Aidan Naughton and Lucas Chapman.

“This is Victor’s third TP52,” said Horton, tactician for Fox 2.0. “This boat was specifically built for the ORC Worlds in 2020, then Covid happened, yet we’ve always kept this regatta on the long-term planning and just slowly chipped away at the details that we’d need during this event. The right crew members, and the guys working on the boat have been endlessly trying to improve it.

“This includes things like the sails, which were sized for this regatta, and the different types of sails, like some specialty reaching sails we’ve been developing for two years. The boat mods and doing all of these other regattas were training with this bigger picture in mind, to come to the ORC worlds and do well.”

Yet things were not always easy nor perfect for Fox, such as during the first race of the event, the Long Offshore Race.

Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Interlodge goes upwind during the buoy-racing portion of the ORC World Championship. Paul Todd/Outside Images

“We didn’t have the greatest start, and we were chasing all the other boats down,” Horton said. “And then on the big long run one of our halyards slipped and the wind instruments got chucked, so all of a sudden we were blind going into the night. Our sails were too flat for the breeze: we expected it to be windier, so we had our heavy-air main and a J2 that were the only upwind sails on the boat to keep the boat light. So, I knew for about 10 hours that we were gonna have a tough night.

“And you know, the guys sailed the pants off the boat. I mean, it was amazing to see everyone work so hard without wind gear. All night long, we challenged. We got back up to the front, and it got really light, and we fell back, and then we fought all the way to the finish and picked up a couple boats on the last 30-mile beat and ended up second. This was an outstanding effort by this team.”

Similarly, the new ORC Class A World Champion dominated their class through a similar long road taken to the top. Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Botin 44 Interlodge IV managed to win all races but two among 19 rivals, the largest class in the event.

“Austin and I have been racing for about 20 years,” said Gwen Fragomen, “and I was on different positions on his boats, from foredeck on a J/24 to pit on a J/105 and then sewer on the Swan 42. Yet until recently I’d never been at the helm, and so this is really fabulous. It’s a bit daunting to be a world champion today.”

She explained this was a project that grew out of their TP52 program to give her an opportunity to drive her own boat.

“I think that we’re really fortunate because the team are super sailors,” she said. “I’m very passionate about ballet, and I think of them as being great choreographers. I mean, they execute brilliantly. So, I really give credit to the team and to Tony [Rey] as the tactician. It was really a great performance, better than Swan Lake.”

Besides Rey the other choreographers on board Interlodge were Kris Matthews, Nick Ford, Adam Minter, Carlos Robles, Tom O’Donnell, Christian Kamp, Norman Berge, Hartwell Jordan, Jay Davis, and Brad Marsh.

Second in Class A were Don Thinschmidt’s Ker 43 Abracadabra, and third was Henry Brauer’s Club Swan 42 Tio Loco.

Marcin Sutkowski’s Grand Soleil 44P Wind Whisper 44, from Poland, defended its ORC B world title after a final-race match-race with John Brim’s Rima98. Paul Todd/Outside Images

 The road taken by the Class B ORC World Champions was literally the longest of any team at this event – from Poland to Baltimore by ship, then to Newport – but was also nearly three years in the planning and execution and had the experience taken from winning their class in two prior ORC World Championships in Sardinia in 2022 and last year in Germany.

Victory was only assured by Marcin Sutkowski on his Grand Soleil 44P Wind Whisper 44 after ensuring that their runner-up rival—John Brim’s Italia 11.98, Rima98—could not finish today’s final race with a score lower than the 2.5-point lead Wind Whisper had going into today. So, the two match-raced the course, which drove both back far enough to use their discards yet retaining their top two places in the final results. Third was Bill and Jackie Baxter’s J/111 Fireball.

Jim Swartz’s Vespar won the three-boat Maxi North American title, contested at the ORC Worlds. Paul Todd/Outside Images

“This was a fantastic event, I’m really glad we came to defend our title,” said Sutkowski. “We have a mix of pros and young sailors on this team, so we are building and learning all the time. We are looking at keeping the boat here in the U.S. this winter and doing some more ORC racing. Next year I hope to have a new Class A boat ready for next year’s championships.”

The remainder of the Wind Whisper 44 team included Joan Navarro, Aksel Magdahl, Hugo Rocha, Stanisław Bajerski, Kacper Gwóźdź, Mateusz Gwóźdź, and Piotr Przybylski.

Meanwhile the Maxis took advantage of great racing conditions today by having another two inshore races, with wins in each by Hap Fauth’s Maxi 72 Bella Mente and Jim Swartz’s Maxi 72 Vesper, which emerged victorious after nine races to win the ORC Maxi North American Championship title.

The crew of Bruce Chafee’s Rhode Island-based R/P 42 Rikki on the return leg of the overnight distance race. Paul Todd/Outside Images

The ORC Class C North American title was won by Jeremy Alexis’s Melges 32 Fleetwood, and NEKA Sailing’s modified J/105 Sleeper won the Class B all-amateur Corinthian Trophy. The Class A Corinthian Trophy was won by Bob Manchester’s J/133 Vamoose.

“We congratulate all the winners and podium finishers at this World Championship,” said ORC Chairman Bruno Finzi. “The New York Yacht Club race managers working with our team did a fantastic job this week of providing fair and competitive race courses. The racing for everyone was always close, and we hope to see some of you join us for next year’s ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia.”

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