Always more fun with the Maxis

While the ORC World Championship is typically capped at boats just over 50 feet, the 2024 edition will also be hosting the Maxi North American Championship when it is held September 30-October 5 in Newport, RI.

“We are ready to help showcase the use of our system of rating and scoring tools to help create fair racing among these exceptional yachts,” said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC.

The Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in Sardinia, Italy, hosts the annual Maxi World Championship, but there are large boats in many other parts of the world and the inclusion of a Maxi class in the first ORC World Championship in the United States in nearly a quarter century fits right into the class’ efforts to broaden its base.

“It is good to see a new stimulus for Maxi competition in North America, once the home of many classic maxis,” says Andrew McIrvine, Secretary General for the International Maxi Association.

Soaked into the floorboards of Newport’s saltier watering holes are stories from the 1980s and 1990s when the globe-trotting Maxi class would regularly call into the quaint New England port to contest a major championship. Bend an ear into a swampy southwesterly seabreeze, the grey beards will say, and you can still hear echoes of wire sheets and overtaxed aluminum rigs straining to hold back spinnakers the size of circus tents.

“The last Maxi Worlds I did was in 1987,” says Art Santry. “I skipped my business school graduation and sailed on Cannonball. Back then you had eight of them, the crews were big, and it was a lot of fun. Late summer was a great time of year to do it because the town was a little quieter and you could take over Thames Street. Watching those boats go through the water, it was unbelievable. When you were on one and crossing tacks, it was like ‘Whoa, don’t get too close.’”

While an octet of 80-footers is unlikely in 2024, Santry is expecting at least a handful of 60- to 80-footers to join his 66-foot Temptation Oakcliff Sailing.

“You’re going upwind at 11.8 knots and downwind at 20-plus,” says Santry. “It’s outrageous. You can’t believe how fast these things go. Our boat has twice the sail area and little bit less displacement than the Frers 57 my family built 40 years ago. And she was a fast boat at the time. It’s pretty spectacular.”

In addition to Temptation Oakcliff Sailing, the 74-foot Foggy co-skippered by New York Yacht Club Commodore Jay Cross and Richard Cohen will complete in the Maxi class. Foggy was drawn by the legendary yacht designer Germán Frers, with stylistic input from architect Frank Gehry, and the beautiful wood exterior obscures a carbon core that makes it something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“We believe a world big-boat championship is always more fun with the Maxis,” says Cross. “We are looking forward to hosting North America’s maxis in Newport this fall.”

The first race of the ORC Worlds, an overnight race of roughly 36 hours in duration, will kick off the competition on September 30. This will be followed with three days of buoy racing and one day of coastal point-to-point racing. The Maxis will not compete in the overnight race, sailing coastal or buoy races on the opening two days, continuing to do so alongside the Maxi Worlds on every scheduled race day.

Event information – Race details – Entry list

Source: NYYC