New ORC World Champions in Estonia

The 2025 ORC World Championship awarded three titles following the racing on August 11-16 in Tallinn, Estonia. The new World Champions in Class A is Niklas Zennstrom’s Carkeek Fast 40+ RAN (SWE), Class B was won by Jesper Radich’s XR 41 FORMULA X (DEN), and the Class C title went to Patrik Forsgren’s modified First 36.7 GARMIN TEAM PRO4U.

Final day report:
After two final inshore races were completed today on Tallinn Bay, three new ORC World Champions were confirmed. Each had been at the top of their leaderboards for most of the week and have demonstrated their prowess in the mixed format of inshore and offshore racing in conditions that varied from light air to today’s blustery 20-25 knot winds.

In Class A, the new World Champions are the team on Niklas Zennstrom’s Carkeek Fast 40+ RAN (SWE) based on a scoreline of 6-3-1-1-1-2-1 in the series raced among 8 entries. Sailing with Zennstrom was an international team of professional talent that included Adrian Stead, Tim Powell, Steve Hayles, Justin Slattery, Toby Iles, Joy Fitzgerald, Tom Kiff, Griffin Spinney, and Mark Lees.

Asked about the brisk conditions of today’s racing, Zennstrom said “We’re comfortable sailing in a lot of wind, the boat has a lot of stability and is quite light, but today was all about making it around the race course in one piece.” Zennstrom and team mate Joy Fitzgerald reckon they saw a top speed of 22.6 knots on one of the downwind legs.

“Our boat is set up to be as fast as possible, and our impression was that ORC boats were set up to be slower, so I think its interesting to see that fast boats can also be competitive in ORC. It’s a good testament to the rating rule that it does not bias one or the other.”

Besides an emphasis on the hardware of the boat, sails, etc, Zennstrom also explained the software is important to the team: he said that while Joy was the only woman on their team this week they have had as many as three on board at other events. Joy’s role was as an off-side trimmer and mid-bow.

“We always want to have more females on our team,” he explained. “In my experience its been better to have more diversity in your team.”

Winning Silver medals was the team aboard Jani Lehti’s GP 42 MERCEDES BENZ (FIN), and winning Bronze was Mati Sepp’s Eco 44 CLEAN ENERGY (EST). The top Corinthian division team of all-amateur sailors was Jonas Grander’s Elliott 44 MATADOR (SWE) who finished 5th in class but by only a 0.5 point margin.

Class B had 22 entries and was similarly dominated most of the week by one team racing a brand-new design – Jesper Radich’s XR 41 FORMULA X (DEN) – who had an impressive scoreline of 1-1-1-2-3-2-1 with no race worse than third and a discard of 2nd place in the inshore Race 4.

Sailing with Radich was a mixed team of young Danish talent supplemented with a handful of more seasoned international pros. Young Danish match racing talent Jeppe Borch was the helmsman, supported by Gonzalo Araújo, Rasmus Taatø, Thor Malthe Andersen, Matias Rossing, Enrico Turin, Gustav Schwennesen, Mads Christian Taatø, and Ross Vickers.

Silver medalists in the class was the team aboard Erik Stannow’s XR 41 DIXI 5 (DEN) and winning Bronze was the previous World Champion in this class, Marcin Sutkowski’s Grand Soleil 44P WINDWHISPER (POL). The top Corinthian team in Class B was fifth-placed Raimondas Šiugždinis’s Italia 11.98 ARABELA, who hail from Lithuania, the venue for next year’s 2026 ORC European Championship.

“We’re of course really pleased with the results,” said Radich, “but this did not come without effort. This was a tough class and I think we prevailed because we put so much into preparation for what we knew was going to be a tough event. I have to say as well that we feel pleased that a new and exciting boat to sail like the XR 41 can do well in ORC ratings and handicapping, the races were really close but I think scored fairly.”

Class C was the largest of all at this event and was also won by a first-time World Champion, although this all-amateur young team from Sweden’s Kungliga svenska segelsällskapet was racing on a proven performer from many years of past World and European Championships held in and around the Baltic. Except for a start line incident in today’s first race, and despite racing in a fleet of 34 entries, this team also had an impressive scoreline of 2-2-1-1-2-DSQ-1.

Patrik Forsgren’s modified First 36.7 GARMIN TEAM PRO4U are the new ORC Class C World Champions, with Gold medals awarded to two Forsgrens (Patrik and Emil), Zacharias Krafft, Alvina Johansson, Claudia Söderberg, Sam Stuntman, Thomas Tennström, and Not Bergstrand. Silver medals were awarded to the team on Aivar Tuulberg’s Arcona 340 KATARIINA II (EST), and Bronze medals to another Swedish team, Anders Helmrich’s Farr 30 CHEYENNE (SWE).

There were more Swedish flags on the podium today than of any other nation.

“This was our 11th year of campaigning this boat, and we’ve been close a few times, but this is great to finally win, said Forsgren. “We’ve been sailing this boat for 20 years, we think in the same way, it’s super-nice, straightforward.” This is the second major ORC championship for Forsgren: he and his son Emil also won Class C in the ORC DoubleHanded European Championship on this boat last month in Helsinki.

Next year’s 2026 ORC World Championship will be held in Sorrento, Italy over May 5-14, 2026.

Race details – Results – Photos

Source: ORC