ORC European Championships

ORC European Championships

Farr 400 Team Premier Sonnkenkoenig

End of June, Punta Ala, Italy

This was my first experience with ORCi rating system. On the good news, the system is a published rating system and there are no secrets. That said it is easy to figure out that this system in its current form is a lot like IMS. The B/C boats that are made to go up and down are very fast. What I do remember when we brought the TP’s into the Med a number of years back the TP’s were able to beat the IMS boats under IMS. This happened here too. The lone TP, Aniene, well sailed was an easy winner, winning every race they started.

It was good to see how easy the Farr 400 is to transport through Europe.  This boat just won the trans Lake Constant race over all and it had to make it over the alps to get to Punta Ala.  The rig made it easy.

Back to the Future

Sailing a great one design boat in a handicap system, one should adjust the boat a little to max out the performance under the rule sailed. We made only one adjustment, and that is adding a spinnaker pole to the already fast down wind 400. It was an easy thing to add, a removable sleeve over the mast to hold the pole gooseneck. 2 after guys and a peace sign… We set, gybed and dropped off of the bow sprit. In the very light and big breeze, (there was none) we would also go off of the sprit. But the pole gave us many advantages. We now had a choice of what angle to sail. We could sail around traffic, or run deep into a mark if we didn’t hit the lay line perfect. This was huge.

But the biggest thing was the speed. Punta Ala is normally a light air 6-12 knots Med condition. A performance boat like the 400 has a hard time against the lead mines of the IMS or even IRC, in these conditions. Having to sail high in this wind range with the A sail on the Sprit is not how these boats should go. The pole boats that can’t speed up, just run deep. So I came up with this idea, to be able to sail to our rating down wind by sailing less distance. In ten know of wind, we can sail 10 degrees lower and .5-.75 knots faster, around 8.75-9.0 knots of boat speed.

The racing was fun, only the up and downs were a bit like ground hog day, all the races sailed in the south 7-12 knots of wind. You had to go left and wait for the big boats to tack and pick your spot. We were the smallest boat in our class but we rated 3^rd highest. Of course the one design boat wants to be fun down wind first. But we did surprise many by being right in it at the top mark and always finishing on the water 3^rd.

We did have one good race in the 150 mile offshore race. Twice around Gillio was a good course. We had 0-18 knots and all angles. We sailed very well around the holes of the islands to take a second, our best finish. Sailing a boat like the 400 in this race is great. Every time there is a change, the boat steps out. Anytime there are extremes, the boat is much faster than its rating. Like under 7 knots and over 15 when it starts to plane.

In the video, you can see many things. We sailed with 8 good guys. 8 guys on this size boat is not too many, but as you can see, there was not a problem to do anything well. We just figured out how to move forward and take care of things. The grinder made it easy and the ability to trim from the windward side really keep the boat moving all the time. If we sailed in a windy area, I would pick 9 people but making them smaller.. You just don’t need to add weight to this boat.

We ended up 6^th in the regatta. It could have been a bit better but the rating in that condition is hard to sail to. But for a one design boat that is not designed to the rule and sailing against boats that are, it is not too bad. I can tell you one thing; we enjoyed our sailing more than the others. A lot of heads turned as we flew by..