At the conclusion of its 38th Annual General Meeting, the Offshore Racing Congress is pleased to announce the formation of a new VPP-based rating rule known as ORC International. This new rule will be ready for use starting in January 2008 and will replace the existing use of the International Measurement System for rating purposes.

“ORC International will be simpler, easier to handle, more accurate and will be better at evaluating performance of different kinds of yachts,” said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC. “Our goal is to maintain and expand our immense database of yacht data and use the current measurement procedures of the International Measurement System (IMS) to continue to provide accurate definitions and measurements.”

ORC International will use the IMS platform of multiple modules from measurement to scoring. However, the software for the most important part - the Velocity Prediction Program (VPP) - has been completely rewritten, with major functions reviewed and recent submissions and research results implemented to produce a more powerful and flexible software package.

Major technical factors that have been given extra attention and adjustment include: 

• A new Aero model with a different evaluation of sail forces with heel angle

• Implementation of Code 0 sails

• A new Residuary Resistance curve (part of the total resistance of the boat)

• A new Righting Moment evaluation

• A new formulation for effective draft of wings and bulb keels

This new rule represents the culmination of work performed throughout this year by the ORC Technical Committee, chaired by Alessandro Nazareth. Other ITC members who have positively contributed include Fietje Judel, who unfortunately retired from the ITC, and Axel Monhaupt who for two decades has been the Chief Engineer of the VPP formulations and algorithms, plus of course former Chairman Manolo Ruiz de Elvira and Andy Claughton who unfortunately were not able to be present in Estoril for the finalization of the new Rule, but have had a major contribution in its preparatory stages.

Fietje Judel, co-designer with Rolf Volijk of several generations of successful racers and also very active in the administration of the Rule with DSV and ORC thinks the use of the new rule will produce better ratings for the newer boats in the existing fleet as well as make the competition better on the water. “With the change of the name it was clearly required to modernise the old IMS and follow the trend to "sexy" boats,” he said. “Therefore ITC did concentrate their work in achieving this goal. I believe that in the future no one will blame the ORC rules for creating slow, tender and heavy boats. Light displacement and stiff boats with a lot of sail area will be treated considerably better than in the past. They will not achieve a guarantee for winning like sometimes happens with so-called "Low Tech" rules, but a well-campaigned light and stiff boat will now be able to win trophies. So the balance between the typical series production cruiser-racer and the more exciting racing boat has been moved a bit towards the racing yacht, but that does not mean that the "normal" boat has no chance any longer. They can still win, but it will not be as easy as before.”

ORC Chief Measurer Nicola Sironi further explained the effect of the new rule on the existing fleet: “All boats will be faster, on average between 4 and 6 sec/mile GPH. The most favoured are the J-Boats traditionally too penalized by IMS, the ‘Open’ classes, the GP classes, the TP 52’s, and all those following the contemporary trend towards more sail area and less weight for a given length who will get a GPH very close to the 2007 IMS value. The most penalised at the other end of the test run are the old Holland-designed Polaris 33, and [the 40-year old S&S-designed] “Sunstone”, together with several other old boats traditionally showing to be over-competitive in large IMS fleets. The worst result is approximately 10 sec/mile faster compared to 2007 numbers.”

With rating certificates issued by ORC in use all over the world, ORC International will therefore have a significant immediate distribution as a global rating rule, a feature sought by many IMS owners. German X-332 owner Juergen Klinghardt says “It does not make any sense to offer different rating rules for one at the same regatta since this will split the fleet. Hopefully, times will come back where only one common rating rule will be used throughout the whole world. The new ORC International rule just issued by the Offshore Racing Congress seems to be a good basis for such an approach.

ORC will continue to offer ORC Club as an inexpensive and simplified rule, having the same VPP processor as ORC International, but with simpler measurement procedures and automated web based forms already operational. The ORC’s new rules, new certificates, and additional services and products such as Stability Certificates, Performance Packages, Sail Plans, and the like will be available on the ORC website in early 2008, and the ORC Offshore World and European Championships 2008 will be raced under the ORC International rule.