Using a rule that is accepted worldwide

A staple in west coast racing since 1964, the prestigious Rolex Big Boat Series attracts competitors from around the country and the world for four days of buoy racing on San Francisco Bay. The event has been racing under ORR since 2014, but new for 2022 was the use of the ORC handicap system.

How did it go? The October 2022 issue of Latitude 38 magazine offered this report:

As he did last year, Scott Easom won his division with the well-prepared J/100 Eight Ball. “These things are won weeks and months before the actual event,” Scott says. “We went through the entire measurement program of ORC — weighing, inclining, and scanning the boat — built all new sails, and went through everything to make sure nothing would break.

“That’s the recipe for success — and surrounding myself with a bunch of really good people whom I trust. We’ve sailed together for years. I had two wonderful ladies on the bow of my boat doing all that hard work, being underwater, and they did a phenomenal job. We laughed even when it got tense; we could still laugh and joke, and we kept working the whole time.”

We asked Scott how he liked ORC. “I get to travel around and do a lot of regattas around the world,” he responded. “I really like the boats that are winning the ORC events, because they’re Beneteaus and Grand Soleils — and J/Boats.

“If we’re going to build this sport, we’ve got to have a rule that is accepted worldwide, just like we did in the old IOR days, where people from all over the world could bring their boats to a series like this and know how their boat’s going to rate.

“We won last year under ORR. We went into this not knowing how this was going to turn out for us. After the first day, we felt confident that if we sailed smart we would get a result that would reflect what we did out on the water.”

Christine Bletzer, Dave Gruver, Brian Janney, Kim Krogstad, and Ben Mercer sailed with Scott.