2024 ORC Double Handed Europeans now open for Entry

2024 ORC Double Handed Europeans now open for Entry
La Duecento 2023 © Andrea Carloni

15 December 2023 - Caorle, Italy – The Circolo Nautico Porto Santa Margherita (CNSM) and the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) are pleased to announce that registration for entry is now open for the 2024 ORC Double Handed European Championship held in Caorle, Italy over 30 April – 5 May 2024. This event is being held concurrently with the CNSM’s 30th edition of the La Duecento Race, a 200-mile course in the upper Adriatic that takes the fleet from Caorle to the Grado buoy, then to the island of Susak in Croatia and return.

Circolo Nautico Porto Santa Margherita (CNSM) - Caorle, ITA
Circolo Nautico Porto Santa Margherita (CNSM) - Caorle, ITA © Andrea Carloni

Caorle is an ancient seaside village over 1000 years old on an island near Venice that features winding streets, colourful houses, spacious piazzas, and is readily accessible to major highways, train lines and the international airport at Venice.

It is the perfect backdrop for this important international sailing event. CNSM was awarded the Bronze Medal of Sporting Merit by Coni in 2018 and is considered one of the most active sailing clubs in the Adriatic.

The 2023 edition of the La Duecento featured 29 monohull and 5 multihull entries in the full-crew division of the race and 14 ORC DH entries divided into 4 classes. Marco Rusticali and Raccardo Rossi’s self-built Hyde 27 MR HYDE won the Double Handed division overall in 45 hours of racing, followed by Mauro and Giovanni Trevisan’s Millenium 40R HAURAKI in second place by a margin of 16 minutes in corrected time.

Marco Rusticali and Raccardo Rossi’s winning 2023 La Duecento on self-built Hyde 27 MR HYDE  © Andrea Carloni
Marco Rusticali and Raccardo Rossi’s winning 2023 La Duecento on self-built Hyde 27 MR HYDE © Andrea Carloni

The event schedule for 2024 includes:

Tuesday to Thursday, 30 April - 2 May - Registration and Inspection
Thursday, 2 May - Opening Ceremony
Friday, 3 May - Start of La Duecento race
Sunday, 5 May - Finish of the race and award ceremony

The event is open to all boats with valid 2024 ORC DH International certificate with APH between 425.0 and 630.0 s/NM included. 

It is CNSM’s intention to have no more than three classes containing boats of similar performances with expected APH values in the range of 80 – 120 sec/NM for each Class. CNSM reserves the right to use different rating values for class definitions as well as to adjust any class limit. 

La Duecento 2023 © Andrea Carloni
La Duecento 2023 © Andrea Carloni

Final class definitions will be agreed by CNSM and ORC by the close of entries on 15 April 2024.

The Entry fee before 16 February 2024 will be €450, then increases to €550 until 15 April, and after 15 April the fee is €700 and accepted at the discretion of CNSM.

The ORC Double Handed European Champion 2024 title will be awarded to the top-scoring boat in each class.

Prizes will be awarded to the top three boats in each class and the top three boats in the all-amateur Corinthian Division of each class. Additional prizes may be awarded to the top three female or mixed crews.

La Duecento 2023 © Andrea Carloni
La Duecento 2023 © Andrea Carloni

Another important feature of this event is the scoring: it will be the first-ever official use of the ORC’s Weather Routing Scoring (WRS) method, where each entry’s rating is determined just before the start by the predicted weather in the northern Adriatic from the start at Caorle to Susak and return. For more information on WRS > Click here

For more information about the 2024 ORC DH European Championship, visit the event’s website at https://orc.org/dheuropeans2024
“We are very excited for this event and the official introduction of Weather Routing Scoring to the offshore sailing world,” said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC. “The ORC technical team alongside the team at PredictWind have been working hard over the past year to make this dream of combining cutting-edge weather and rating technologies a reality. This promises to be a major step forward in giving every entry the most fair chance yet to win an offshore race.”