Netherlands

454 Dutch boats across 15 international events, led by AEROMAX at 15.6% — power-efficient upwind hulls anchoring the fleet ahead of STEELCORE and IRONWIND, North Sea-bred breadth across the international circuit.

Kinship

Every fleet has a fingerprint.

From the Solent’s tide-lines to the Aegean Meltemia — find your waters.

 Hidden Shape

11 archetypes.
How this country's fleet clusters before the results arrive.

How every Dutch boat clusters, before the results arrive.
Kinship

A broadly-campaigning fleet with an upwind-powered core.

The Netherlands' fleet spans 454 boats racing across the North Sea, Baltic, Mediterranean championship circuits, and the classic UK and Atlantic offshore events under Watersportverbond governance — a broadly-campaigning fleet led by the power-efficient AEROMAX archetype at the top, with the 2026 ORC Double-Handed World Championship raced on home North Sea waters in May.

454
boats
15
events
118
races
Domestic competitive fleet · as of 2026-07-10

ORC Authority: Watersportverbond

The Watersportverbond governs a fleet that campaigns broadly rather than staying local. Dutch boats race the North Sea domestically, head south for Mediterranean championships, and remain regulars at the Rolex Fastnet Race, the RORC offshore circuit, and the Baltic. The Netherlands fields J/Boats, X-Yachts, Dehler, and Beneteau production lines alongside a long tail of one-off builds — and the way those platforms cluster has a clear leading band: AEROMAX, the power-efficient upwind hybrid, carries the largest single share, close to one boat in six.

AEROMAX leads the Dutch archetype distribution. AEROMAX heads the fleet at 15.6% (71 boats) — power-efficiency hybrids with strong upwind drive and moderate displacement — with STEELCORE at 12.8% (58 boats), the stiff, stability-positive rigid-platform hull, and IRONWIND at 11.0% (50 boats) behind, the three at the top combining for nearly two-fifths of the fleet. Johnstone R anchors the drawing-board ledger at 12.1% (the most-common voice, still below the 15% dominance threshold), with Judel-Vrolijk following at 8.6% — a J/Boats production presence sharing the leaderboard with the long-running German offshore design partnership that has shaped a generation of Dutch grand-prix entries.

The world championship came home in May. Fifteen Watersportverbond-registered boats raced the ORC Double-Handed World Championship on North Sea waters (May 21–22, 2026) — the largest Dutch race group at any single international event in the archive, and the majority of the 26 boats with scored observations at the event. Two offshore tests per class — a short course of roughly 32–40 nautical miles and a long course of roughly 193–230 — scored on time-on-time with ECMWF weather routing.

National fleet view · 454 boats · as of 2026-07-10

At a glance

Netherlands — structural profile.

Scope
454 boats
439 ORC-rated · 15 mapped-IRC
Top 3 archetypes
  1. AEROMAX — 71 boats (15.6%)
  2. STEELCORE — 58 boats (12.8%)
  3. IRONWIND — 50 boats (11.0%)
Eleven canonical performance archetypes cluster the fleet by dimensional signature. See the full map →
Top designer cluster
Johnstone R
55 boats (12.1%) — the most-represented design voice in this fleet.

Counts and archetype assignments above are measured from the current corpus. Commentary below is interpretive.

National fleet view · as of 2026-07-10
Hidden Shape

The shape of the Dutch fleet.

454 Dutch boats across 11 archetypes — led by AEROMAX at 15.6%, with STEELCORE at 12.8% and IRONWIND at 11.0% behind. Here's how they cluster, and what the collective signature reveals about how the Netherlands races.

The Dutch Fleet Signature

The Netherlands' fleet leads with the power-efficient, upwind-biased AEROMAX shape ahead of a broad supporting field. AEROMAX leads at 15.6% (71 boats) — power-efficiency hybrids with strong upwind drive and moderate displacement, a shape that rewards the long beats of North Sea and offshore racing. STEELCORE follows at 12.8% (58 boats), a stiff, stability-positive rigid-platform hull with low heel-sensitivity, and IRONWIND sits at 11.0% (50 boats), a stable-drive platform with predictable load behavior. The three lead archetypes carry nearly two-fifths of the fleet combined, and the supporting field stays broad — the signature of a fleet that buys across production one-designs and one-off builds, and campaigns from North Sea club racing through Mediterranean and Atlantic offshore circuits.

  • AEROMAX 15.6% · 71 boats
  • STEELCORE 12.8% · 58 boats
  • IRONWIND 11.0% · 50 boats

Dimension emphasis: Sail Performance · Condition & Tactical

In May 2026, 15 Dutch boats raced the ORC Double-Handed World Championship on home North Sea waters, where Team Heiner 4 (NED 7472, J-109) ran closest to its weather-routed allowance across both scored offshore courses — see what we saw →.

Complete data Latest published view

AEROMAX

Upwind-power specialist with the fleet's strongest rig-driven VMG.

strong upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 71
Share 15.6%
  • First 40.7
  • First 40
  • Grand Soleil 40

IRONWIND

Stiff, stable-drive platform with predictable load behavior.

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 50
Share 11.0%
  • J-80 OD
  • J-24
  • Melges 24 OD

KEELFLEX

Narrow stability window; fast when perfectly balanced, punishing when not.

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 45
Share 9.9%
  • First 31.7
  • Express
  • First 31.7 LR

STEELCORE

Central, stiff rigid-platform hull — stability-positive, hull-form-dominant, low heel-sensitivity.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 58
Share 12.8%
  • Sunfast 37
  • Dufour 40
  • Grand Soleil 37 BC

GRAVITYRUN

Heavy-mode momentum boat with strong downwind power in sustained breeze.

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · strong downwind

Boats 47
Share 10.4%
  • First 36.7
  • First 34.7
  • X-332

GLIDEFORM

Low-drag hull delivering smooth, efficient downwind acceleration.

weak upwind · moderate reaching · strong downwind

Boats 43
Share 9.5%
  • J-105
  • J-99
  • Farr 30

DEEPFRAME

Deep-hull efficiency paired with a stiff platform for drag-optimized flow.

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 38
Share 8.4%
  • J-109
  • First 36
  • J-120

HEADFORCE

Upwind-biased pressure boat driving compact rigs through higher-drag hull forms.

strong upwind · weak reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 31
Share 6.8%
  • Fortuna 9
  • Miura
  • Elan 333

STORMLINE

High-power, heel-sensitive platform with explosive potential when sailed flat.

moderate upwind · strong reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 26
Share 5.7%
  • Comfortina 32
  • Fenix
  • Aphrodite 101

STEELFORM

Compact-rig, rigid platform delivering consistent, low-variance results.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 24
Share 5.3%
  • Bavaria CR 46
  • Dufour 41 Performance
  • Hanse 400 E

AEROBLADE

High-efficiency rig with sharp heel sensitivity and rapid trim response.

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 20
Share 4.4%
  • TP-52
  • Farr 40
  • XP-44

Event cohort view · 15 boats · as of 2026-07-10

Selected Race Result

ORC DH Worlds 2026 — Classes A, B, C.

15 of 454 fleet boats competed. 6 races — one short offshore course of roughly 32–40 nautical miles and one long course of roughly 193–230, scored per class on time-on-time with ECMWF weather routing. May 21–22, 2026, on the Dutch contingent's home North Sea waters — the largest Dutch race group at any event in the archive. On Comparative Time, negative is faster than the rating expects (the boat beat its rating); positive is slower. On Crew Residual, negative means the crew beat the boat's archetype-expected pace; positive sits below that baseline.

Headlines

What the 15-boat Dutch contingent did at the DH Worlds.

Comparative Time

1. TEAM HEINER 4 · +17.9 sec/nm
2. WAVERIDER · +19.6 sec/nm
3. X-ESTEEM · +27.6 sec/nm
Cohort 15 boats

Crew Residual

1. WAVERIDER · 16.9 sec/nm
2. TEAM HEINER 4 · 18.6 sec/nm
3. X-ESTEEM · 26.2 sec/nm
Cohort 15 boats

Event Profile

Courses 32–230 nm offshore
Scoring ToT · ECMWF routing
Dates 2026-05-21/22
Cohort 15 boats
Stories

What we saw at the DH Worlds.

15 Dutch boats raced the ORC Double-Handed World Championship on home North Sea waters — the majority of the 26 boats with scored observations at the event, across one short and one long offshore course per class, scored on time-on-time with ECMWF weather routing. The contingent's Comparative Time and crew-residual numbers tell the story of which two-person crews kept their boats closest to the weather-routed allowance at this running. On both metrics, negative means faster than the rating expects and a stronger result — here every Dutch boat ran positive, so the leaders are the ones with the smallest gap above the allowance.

Performance Verdict

TEAM HEINER 4 ran closest to its weather-routed allowance of the Dutch fifteen.

TEAM HEINER 4 GRAVITYRUN (NED 7472, J-109) posted a +17.9 sec/nm Comparative Time across both scored offshore courses — the lowest delta of the 15-boat Dutch contingent, roughly 31.6 sec/nm clear of the race group median (+49.5). A Johnstone R J-109, it held the smallest gap to its ECMWF weather-routed allowance on the short course and the long course alike, and paired that with the second-smallest crew residual of the Dutch group at 18.6 sec/nm. The verdict is consistency: no Dutch boat got under its allowance at this running, and the boat that came closest did it on both surfaces the event measured.

  • Comp Time: +17.9 sec/nm · lowest of 15 NED boats
  • Margin to cohort median: 31.6 sec/nm · crew residual 18.6, 2nd-smallest
Partial data ORC DH Worlds 2026
Crew-Carried

WAVERIDER held the smallest crew residual in the Dutch race group.

WAVERIDER GLIDEFORM (NED 450, Sunfast 3200) recorded a 16.9 sec/nm crew residual over the two scored races — the narrowest gap between the platform's modeled pace and the crew-delivered result anywhere in the 15-boat Dutch contingent — while sitting second on Comparative Time at +19.6 sec/nm. The hull frame matters here: a 32-foot production double-hander gave away waterline to most of the Dutch entries around it, yet its two-person crew kept the boat tighter to what the platform's physics predicted than any other Dutch crew managed at this running. The result is a crew-versus-platform contrast, not a raw-speed one.

  • Crew residual: 16.9 sec/nm · smallest of 15 NED
  • Comp Time: +19.6 sec/nm · 2nd of 15 NED
Partial data ORC DH Worlds 2026
Fleet vs Race Composition Shift

A GLIDEFORM double-handed turnout from a fleet that leads elsewhere.

The Dutch national fleet leads with AEROMAX (15.6%), STEELCORE (12.8%), and IRONWIND (11.0%) — a distribution where GLIDEFORM sits mid-order at 9.5%. Yet the 15 boats that raced the DH Worlds skewed sharply the other way: five of the 15 were GLIDEFORM (a third of the race group, roughly three and a half times the archetype's national share), with DEEPFRAME (3 of 15, against 8.4% nationally) next. The low-drag, downwind-efficient hulls the national fleet does not over-index on were the shape the Netherlands' double-handed entries brought to their home world championship — and IRONWIND, third in the national ledger, sent none. The race group and the national fleet are two different populations; the self-selecting two-person offshore entry tilted toward GLIDEFORM far more than the country's structural signature would predict.

  • NED national top-3: 15.6 / 12.8 / 11.0% · AEROMAX / STEELCORE / IRONWIND
  • DH Worlds race group: 5 of 15 GLIDEFORM · 33% vs 9.5% national
Complete data Race group vs fleet
Race Archetypes

26 boats classified in the ORC DH Worlds 2026.

Archetypes as published 2026-07-10 — the FleetEdge view nearest this event.

GLIDEFORM

Low-drag hull delivering smooth, efficient downwind acceleration.

Boats 8
Share 30.8%

DEEPFRAME

Deep-hull efficiency paired with a stiff platform for drag-optimized flow.

Boats 5
Share 19.2%

AEROMAX

Upwind-power specialist with the fleet's strongest rig-driven VMG.

Boats 4
Share 15.4%

AEROBLADE

High-efficiency rig with sharp heel sensitivity and rapid trim response.

Boats 3
Share 11.5%

STEELCORE

Central, stiff rigid-platform hull — stability-positive, hull-form-dominant, low heel-sensitivity.

Boats 3
Share 11.5%

GRAVITYRUN

Heavy-mode momentum boat with strong downwind power in sustained breeze.

Boats 1
Share 3.8%

IRONWIND

Stiff, stable-drive platform with predictable load behavior.

Boats 1
Share 3.8%

STORMLINE

High-power, heel-sensitive platform with explosive potential when sailed flat.

Boats 1
Share 3.8%

Classified fleet view · 453 of 454 classified · as of 2026-07-10

Fleet Stories

The Dutch fleet's signature.

AEROMAX leads the Dutch fleet

AEROMAX is the leading archetype across the Dutch fleet at 71 boats (15.6%) — the largest single share and the only archetype above the 15% mark, clear of STEELCORE (12.8%) and IRONWIND (11.0%) behind it. AEROMAX is the power-efficiency hybrid: strong upwind drive with moderate displacement, a shape that rewards the long beats and pressure-on legs of North Sea and offshore racing. That the Netherlands over-indexes on it says something structural about how the fleet is built — a national preference for upwind-capable, efficiency-first hulls rather than the heavy-mode or rough-water specialists that lead some neighboring fleets.

Johnstone R — the Netherlands' most-common design voice

Across the Dutch fleet, Johnstone R is the most-represented designer at 55 boats (12.1%) — the largest single share in a fleet where no board crosses the dominance mark. Judel-Vrolijk follows at 8.6% (39 boats), with the Jeppesen-Nielsen X-Yachts boards and de Ridder behind. The J/Boats production lines — J-109, J-105, J-99, J-35 — carry that share through the Dutch club and offshore fleet, sharing the leaderboard with the German Judel-Vrolijk partnership that has shaped a generation of Dutch grand-prix entries. The drawing-board ledger is broad: market presence, not market command.

Popular Classes

The boats that define Netherlands racing.

J-109 (11)

J/Boats' mid-2000s IRC 35-footer — one-design capable, handicap friendly.

J-105 (8)

The J/Boats 35 that built club asymmetric racing.

First 31.7 (7)

Beneteau's Finot-designed club racer — the backbone of European ORC fleets.

J-99 (7)

The J/Boats short-handed offshore specialist — a Class 40 successor in ORC trim.

J-35 (6)

A racer-cruiser from Tillotson-Pearson.

Continue

Go deeper.

Fleet Overview

The global offshore racing landscape and how the Dutch fleet fits within it.

Platform Scale

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Join the world's offshore racing teams.

Historical weather meets hull physics — every fleet, every leg.

See Netherlands Racing — Baltic Offshore See Fleet Overview