2019 SSAB ORC European Championship, Day 2 - Offshore race progress
by ORC Media 15 Aug 2019 18:42 BST
11-17 August 2019

For Class B the offshore race has a perfect start on a perfect day - 2019 SSAB ORC European Championship, Day 2 © MarcS
On Day Two of the SSAB ORC European Championship 2019 the fleet of 70 boats are enjoying a sunny Swedish summer day racing offshore in the open Baltic Sea on courses traversing back and forth along the rocky coast.
Class A is racing 79.0 miles, Class B 68.2 miles and Class C 60.6 miles, and after a start at 10:00 this morning they are expected to start crossing the finish line in the harbor of Oxelosund starting at sundown.
While racing under handicap using Coastal/Long distance course ratings, and therefore exact standings are difficult to calculate, some early favorites are emerging as leaders in corrected time based on the AIS tracker data.
At 1700 local time Erik Berth's Swan 45 Tarok VII from Denmark has the lead over Bernhard Buchwald's XP 44 Xenia from Germany and Karalow Witold's Soto 40 Scamp 27 from Poland. Leading in elapsed time is One Sailing Finland's TP52 Zer0emission.
Class B is much more contentious, with clusters of boats pushing each other around the course. The lead pack has three Swedish Farr 40's vying for the lead: C-J Marnell's Farr 40 Warpath, Jonas Andersson's Stormtrooper and Johan Ekroth's Hurrykanen, and at 1700 Warpath had the lead in both elapsed and corrected time. Next in line in corrected time looked like two Finnish teams: Power Reach's Sinergia 40 Adela, followed by Sakari Laulajainen's Salona 37 Ramdata.
And in Class C the racing in corrected time and in the main group is very tight, with Mathias Haufe's Esse 990 Finesse in the lead, followed by the elapsed time leader Holger Streckenbach's modified Melges 32 Old Jug, who currently is launched out well ahead of the pack and will likely beat everyone into the harbor finish. And in third in corrected time is another fast boat, Max Augustin's Farr 30 H.E.A.T.
Find final results when they become available here.
Inshore windward/leeward racing resumes tomorrow, with the first start of two planned races scheduled for 11:00 CET.
For more information on the SSAB ORC European Championship 2019, visit orc2019.oxss.nu.
More on ORC rating systems, ORC certificates and events can be found at orc.org.