Getting that first sniff of sweat

When it was confirmed for the 2024 ORC World Championship to be held in the USA, the sailing season in the northeast got a bit more exciting as the focus intensifies in Newport, RI. While the Worlds aren’t until September 30-October 5, the first sniff of sweat will be felt at the 170th Annual Regatta on June 14-16.

“We’ve had this boat two and a half years, and I think this is the most competitive class we’ve seen in ORC, and the tightest rating band,” says Andrew Weiss, the skipper of the Italia 11.98 Christopher Dragon XII, which will sail in ORC D. “It’s great. [The time allowances for a one-hour race] are going to be down to between no time on our sistership to a minute an a half. It’s a good pre-cursor for the ORC World Championship in the fall.”

For the previous two years, Andrew Berdon was often right in the middle of the fleet of 30- and 40-foot sailboats that makes up ORC C and D at the Annual Regatta. He sailed a J/111 named Summer Storm, doing a mix of distance and buoy races. For this summer, however, he’s upgraded to a TP52 and will be lining up with the thoroughbreds in ORC B where there will be more space on the line, but little margin for error around the track.

“I bought [the J/111] and refit her over the winter of 2022, and splashed her in July in time for the Club’s Race Week at Newport in 2022,” says Berdon, who campaigned a Marten 49 from 2016 through 2021. “We then won our class in the Vineyard Race against some very stiff ORC competition. That gave me the confidence to campaign her over the winter of 2022-23 in the SORC, the RORC 600, and BVI Spring Regatta. We had a great time sailing her, but at 36 feet, she was not enough boat for long distances.

“The decision to buy another carbon race boat was put into motion when Royal Ocean Racing Club announced its intention to re-establish the Admiral’s Cup in 2025. When I read of that decision, I revisited the idea of competing in the 2024 Bermuda Race and ORC Worlds in Newport, both for their own sake and as a reality check to see if we could be competitive as a candidate for an Admiral’s Cup team.”

The early returns for Berdon and his crew were very positive with an overall win in the Storm Trysail Club’s 186-mile Block Island Race a few weeks ago. Now he’ll get a chance to see how his crew and his new boat do around the buoys.

Berdon’s competition in ORC B will be familiar to anyone who’s followed the sharp end of ORC sailing the past few years: David Team’s Vesper, Victor Wild’s Fox, and the Prospector team, led by Larry Landry and Paul McDowell, which has downsized from a Mills 68 in advance of the ORC Worlds. There’s also one wild card in the class, the sparkling new Botin ORC 45 Azulito, skippered by Wendy Schmidt.

“I’m looking forward to competing against some of the best-prepared and crewed TP52 teams in the world,” says Berdon. “We have a great group of sailors and a great boat, and we are very fortunate to be racing TP52s in Newport this summer.”

Source: NYYC