US Sailing Offshore Office - 2024 Pre-Season Communication

by Bayview Mackinac Race 8 Oct 2023 18:49 BST July 20, 2024

As the 2023 racing season winds down, our office is busy preparing for the 2024 season. The 2024 racing season is shaping up to be a big year for offshore sailing, including the 100th Bayview Mackinac Race. With the anticipation of many returning competitors and new competitors, our office has a few suggestions as we all prepare for a great upcoming season.

Please see the recommendations below, we have broken the list up into General News (for all competitors, new and returning), boats that have raced in the past five years, and boats that have not raced in the past five years:

General News and Recommendations:

Below is a comprehensive list of sails that must be reported on ORC Certificates. Please review the list even if you are a seasoned competitor:

• Largest mainsail
• Mizzen
• Quadrilateral sail or sail set on the wishbone boom
• Largest headsail set on the forestay
• Largest symmetric spinnaker (if carried)
• Largest asymmetric spinnaker, having SHW/SFL = 85% (if carried)
• All headsails set flying (both staysails and flying headsails)
• All asymmetric spinnakers having SHW/SFL < 85%
• Mizzen Staysail

You are welcome to report all of your sails to us, if you do so, please send the sail measurement certificate for each sail. If you are unsure on if a sail should be reported or is the largest of its category, please send us the sail anyway and we will help decide if it is needed.

For any new sails, even if they are "the same" as your current sails, you need to have the new sails measured by a US Sailing Trained/Authorized Sail Measurer and submit the sail measurements to US Sailing with your 2024 ORC Certificate Application. Often new sails are slightly different in actual size from designed dimensions and may be different from the sail they are replacing. It is to your advantage to have accurate sail measurements.

If you are interested in having your boat measured for the 2024 racing season - freeboards, inclination tests, hull, rig, etc. - please reach out to the Offshore Office as soon as possible. The office can be contacted at or 401-342-7953.

Winter is a great time to conduct a thorough review of your ORC Certificate. We encourage you to take the time and review all the input data for your ORC Certificate. This includes rig information, sails, prop data, hull information, and crew weight. If you find any data that is not consistent with your boat, please contact our office. For example, check your propeller measurement data, maybe the propeller was replaced, and we did not update the measurements. Winter is a great time to make these corrections and updates!

Our office is committed to working with Great Lakes One-Design classes on their 2024 ORC Certificates. We would like to note that ORC has a set list of One-Design designated classes, they can be found here. If your GL One-Design class is NOT one of these designated classes, we do not have an ORC set of OD boat and sail data. Our office has the following recommendations for GL OD Classes not included on ORC's OD list:

• Each class should send a set of class maximum sail measurements to . These will be stored on file at US Sailing for future use of GL OD classes. Please note, some classes require fewer sail measurements than ORC does. If the ORC VPP is missing a sail measurement, it will assume the largest possible value for that measurement. Thus, it is recommended that when the class reports their maximum sail measurements to US Sailing, they include ALL measurements on the ORC Certificate.
• If class maximums are reported for a GL OD class, these measurements can be used for boats receiving an ORC Certificate in the specific class. Please note that since these are sail maximums it is almost always likely that a boat's actual sails will be smaller than those reported by the class. For this reason, we highly recommend and encourage all GL OD boats to get their actual sails measured and submit these measurements with their 2024 ORC Certificate Application.

Crew weight is an important input value on all ORC Certificates. Each certificate lists the minimum and maximum crew weight for a boat. In order to sail in compliance with your certificate, the total weight of the crew MUST fall between these values.

Maximum crew weight can be declared by the owner or boat representative handling the ORC Certificate. Our office highly encourages each boat to report an accurate maximum crew weight. If a crew weight is not reported, a calculated default weight will be used for the maximum crew weight.

Note: GL OD Classes, the default weight calculated by ORC, is 99% of the time NOT the default class weight as declared by the GL OD class rules. If you plan to sail at class weight you will need to declare this weight to US Sailing on your ORC Certificate Application.

Each year crew weight corrections after the issuance of a certificate are requested regularly, slowing down certificate production. In effort to issue certificates quickly and accurately, please ensure your declared crew weight is as accurate as possible on your 2024 ORC Application or is corrected during the review process.

Boats that have raced the Bayview Mackinac Race since 2019 to present:

Review your sail data to ensure that all data is accurate. As mentioned above, all new, recut, or remeasured sails MUST be reported to US Sailing for your ORC Certificate. Even if you are replacing a sail same for same, they must be remeasured and reported.

If any of the following items have changed since your boat's last ORC or ORR Certificate, your boat will need to be remeasured, please contact our office for further information:

• Changing/replacing the mast
• Replacing the engine
• Changing or modifying the keel or rudder
• Replacing batteries or other heavy items.
• Adding or removing powered systems to the boat
• Changing the composition of the rigging for the mast- (ex. SS rod to synthetic)

Boats that have NOT raced the Bayview Mackinac Race since 2019:

If your sails have not been measured in the last five years, we highly encourage you to get your sails measured prior to completing your ORC Certificate. Over time sails shrink and stretch, so having current, up-to-date sail measurements is to your benefit. If you have any questions regarding where to have your sails measured, please contact our office.

If your boat has not raced in the Bayview Mackinac Race, Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, or other measurement rule race in 10 years or more please contact our office as soon as possible. We will work with you to ensure we have all the necessary data on file to complete an ORC Certificate for 2024.

The 2024 ORC Certificate Application is NOT open yet. Our office will send out communications in January 2024 regarding the opening of the application.

If you have any questions pertaining to this message or obtaining a rating, please contact our office at or 401-342-7953.