A second day of fast coastal racing at the 2023 ORC World Championship

August 8, 2023 - Kiel, Germany - In this second day of racing at the 2023 ORC World Championship, the persistent low-pressure center in southern Scandinavia continued to drive strong westerly winds in the Kieler Bucht. Accordingly, race managers from Kieler Yacht-Club set a coastal course for Classes B and C with early leaders emerging in these classes after two races.

An unfortunate secondary effect of these strong westerly winds was to drive water in the Kieler Bucht to the east, thus lowering water levels in the west, and causing the deep draft entries in Class A to remain at their slips at the venue in Schilksee Harbor due to a lack of depth to allow them to leave the marina. Nonetheless, at wind speeds of 20-30 knots today’s conditions were brisk but quite raceable from start in the inner Kiel fiord out to the same mark as yesterday at the mouth of the Eckernfiord, and return to the finish in front of Schilksee.

Performance Curve Scoring was done for a constructed course of 16.8 miles.

The other outstanding feature of the weather today was the intermittent driving rain, lightning and thunderstorm squalls that buffeted the fleet.

In Class B the first boat around the first reach mark was Marcin Sutkowski’s Grand Soleil 44P WINDWHISPER 44 (POL), the reigning ORC Class B World Champion boat with a new Polish crew. This team was nearly caught at the bottom of the downwind leg by Sampsa Vehkamaki’s Landmark 43 MADAME GREY (FIN), yet they managed to hold the lead to the finish and defeat the Finns by 43 seconds in elapsed time and to win by 3:39 in corrected time over runner-up SIRENA (DEN), Peter Buhl’s Swan 42.

"We just sailed the Fastnet in even more wind, and even though with a different boat, we learned a lot on the first day and translated that into speed today,” said Aksel Magdahl, Navigator on WINDWHISPER 44. “The conditions were at the top of the range, but we have been prepared, our boat is optimized for a lot of wind, although even more than we expected. It was a lot of work in the heavy gusts, so we rotated crew on the grinder.”

SIRENA’s 2nd place yesterday and today place them in second place overall on 4 points, while Torkjel Valland’s Landmark 43 WHITE SHADOW (NOR) is in third place on scores of 6-3. 29 teams are competing this week in Class B.

Class C is now also led by a two-race winning team: Harles Liiv’s J-112E SHADOW (EST), but their winning margin today in corrected time was much closer: only 23 seconds over runner-up Raimondas Siugzdinis’s Italia 11.98 ARABELA (LTU) after over 2 hours of racing.

“We won the races today and yesterday due to our team being very efficient at shifting gears in the changing conditions,” said Liiv in an interview. “And today we knew we had to push hard because it’s not easy with our competitors - for example, we put up the spinnaker today in 30 knots of wind because we wanted to make a jump forward knowing our competition was close.”

Class C has 68 teams competing in two groups of 34 each, with the group members getting re-shuffled each day. The current top three teams are SHADOW on scores of 1-1, Max Habeck's J-112E AQUAPLAY (GER) in second on scores of 4-1, and MATILDA 4 (EST), yet another J-112E skippered by Juss Ojala, in third on scores of 1-4.

Racing resumes on Wednesday with yet another Coastal Race in the morning, and after a brief break and if the conditions permit, the teams will move from the finish area at Schilksee to their respective course area for the start of windward/leeward inshore racing.

Quotes from the teams

Gordon Nickel, helmsman of AQUAPLAY J-112 (GER), Class C: "It went very well for us today. We got out of the fjord under gennaker but took the kite away in time so that we could win on the upwind. On the downwinder afterwards, we pulled the gennaker again but had to take it down with a broken tack line. But the guys in front did a good job so we were able to set it again. That was a really fun round today." 

Peter Buhl, Skipper SIRENA Swan 42 (DEN), Class B: "There were tough conditions, but we love ocean racing. The race committee made the right decision to sail a Coastal Race instead of the Long Race. It was very sporty out there, even though we didn't set the spinnaker.“

Summary of the results after 2 races scored

Class A – no races on Day 2

1. BEAU GESTE TP52 - Karl Kwok (HKG)
2. OUTSIDER TP52 – Tilmar Hansen (GER)
3. RED BANDIT TP52 – Carl-Peter Forster (GER)

Class B

1. WINDWHISPER Grand Soleil 44P – Marcin Sutkowski (POL) 1+1=2
2. SIRENA Swan 42 – Peter Buhl (DEN) 2+2=4
3. WHITE SHADOW Landmark 43 – Torkjel Valland (NOR) 6+3=9

Class C

1. SHADOW J-112E – Harles Liiv (EST) 1+1=2
2. AQUAPLAY J-112 – Max Habeck (GER) 4+1=5
3. MATILDA 4 J-112E – Juss Ojala (EST) 1+4=5