USA

One of the world's largest ORC nations. A diverse offshore racing culture spanning four coastlines.

Kinship

American racing spans four coasts.

Annapolis, Newport, Key West, Chicago, San Francisco — find US offshore racing.

 Hidden Shape

The hidden shape of the fleet.
The kinds of boat that keep appearing when every hull is measured the same way.

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

Four coastlines. Every competitive style.

The United States fields one of the most geographically diverse ORC communities in the world, spanning four distinct coastlines — the East Coast’s blue‑water programs, the Gulf’s expanding fleet, the Pacific’s innovation culture, and the Great Lakes’ intensity. This diversity of competitive styles makes the American fleet one of FleetEdge’s richest comparative datasets.

1,224
boats
57
events
196
races
National fleet view · as of 2026-09-02

National authority: US Sailing

The character of American offshore racing is diverse, and the 1,224-boat USA fleet sits across two structural anchors at once. AEROCORE leads the fleet at 18.8% — the large-scale production racer-cruiser tier that runs downwind-neutral in race results, and the widest single block in American offshore racing — with LEANRUN second at 18.3%, the large-scale tier whose balanced signature fits the Newport, Annapolis, and San Francisco Bay club traditions, and HEFTLINE third at 15.0%, the compact, stiff-platform tier built around hulls like the J-111, Farr 30, and Cape 31, where America's one-design circuits meet handicap racing; AEROSTREAM sits fourth at 14.7% — the towering-rig upwind-power tier that anchors the championship-grade end. Together, AEROCORE and LEANRUN account for 37.1% of the fleet and frame the widest blocks of the American performance picture. The single largest structural fact, however, sits at the design board: Johnstone R / J/Boats carries 278 hulls — 22.7% of the fleet — the iconic J-line racer-cruiser family (J-105, J-120, J-111, J-109) that anchors American club racing on every coast. Teams range from East Coast dynasties with decades of offshore history to West Coast innovators and emerging Gulf competitors, with several premier venues — Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, San Francisco Bay, Narragansett Bay — running tidal-gate water where current management is as decisive as boat speed. Almost the entire fleet now resolves cleanly into the public archetype model — 1,215 of 1,224 boats classified across the eight archetypes of the 2026 census. In autumn 2024, a 28-boat American contingent raced the ORC World Championship in Valencia, and the Botin 44 INTERLODGE 44 (USA 4415) won Class A on 8 points — see what we saw and the USA ORC fleet hub.

National fleet view · 1,224 boats · as of 2026-09-02

At a glance

USA — structural profile.

Scope
1,224 boats
1,212 ORC-rated · 12 mapped-IRC
Top 3 archetypes
  1. AEROCORE — 230 boats (18.8%)
  2. LEANRUN — 224 boats (18.3%)
  3. HEFTLINE — 184 boats (15.0%)
Eight canonical performance archetypes (the fleet’s eight recurring design types) cluster the fleet by dimensional signature. See the full map →
Top designer cluster
Johnstone R
278 boats (22.7%) — 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 2026-09-02
Hidden Shape

The shape of the American fleet.

1,224 boats in the fleet. 1,212 ORC-rated and 12 mapped IRC entries attributed across eight archetypes — spanning four coastlines and the deepest one-design backbone in offshore racing. Here's how they cluster, and what the collective signature reveals about how America races.

The American ORC Fleet Signature

America's classified fleet is anchored at both ends of the spectrum, and the end that holds the count lead is the production racer-cruiser backbone: AEROCORE. AEROCORE carries 18.8% (230 boats) of the fleet — the large-scale tier that runs downwind-neutral in race results, hulls like the First 36 and J-120 — the single widest block in American offshore racing, and the shape the country's club and coastal circuits are built around. LEANRUN follows at 18.3% (224 boats), the large-scale tier whose balanced signature fits the Newport, Annapolis, and San Francisco Bay club traditions. HEFTLINE sits third at 15.0% (184 boats) — the compact, stiff-platform tier built around hulls like the J-111, Farr 30, and Cape 31, where America's one-design circuits meet handicap racing — with AEROSTREAM fourth at 14.7% (180 boats), the towering-rig upwind-power tier that suits the windward-leeward and grand-prix end — the championship-grade archetype, and the one that carried INTERLODGE 44 to her Class A world title at Valencia. Together the leading pair carries 37.1% of the fleet — the production racer-cruiser backbone and the balanced club tier, side by side at the head of the American fleet. AEROFORCE, LEANFORCE, KEELRUN, and SPARKFLEX fill the remainder of the classified pool. Underneath the archetype shape, the design board is unambiguous: Johnstone R / J/Boats carries 278 hulls — 22.7% of the fleet, the largest single-designer concentration in the American fleet. The iconic J-line (J-105, J-120, J-111, J-109) is the structural backbone of American club racing on all four coastlines. The fleet now resolves almost entirely into the public archetype model — 1,215 of 1,224 boats classified across the eight archetypes of the 2026 census.

  • AEROCORE 18.8% · 230 boats
  • LEANRUN 18.3% · 224 boats
  • HEFTLINE 15.0% · 184 boats

Design board: Johnstone R / J/Boats 22.7%

In autumn 2024 a 28-boat American contingent raced the ORC World Championship in Valencia, and the Botin 44 INTERLODGE 44 (USA 4415, AEROSTREAM) won Class A outright — 1st of 19 on 8 points, twenty clear of the next American boat. TIO LOCO and ZAMMERMOOS held 3rd and 5th in the published class order behind her. See what we saw and the USA ORC fleet hub.

Complete data Latest published view

AEROCORE

Large scale · tender reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 230
Share 18.8%
  • First 36
  • Bavaria CR 46
  • J-120

LEANRUN

— upwind-neutral in race results.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · weak downwind

Boats 224
Share 18.3%
  • First 36.7
  • J-109
  • First 35

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured upwind advantage in race results.

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 184
Share 15.0%
  • J-111
  • Farr 30
  • Cape 31

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

neutral upwind · weak reaching · weak downwind

Boats 180
Share 14.7%
  • TP-52
  • XP-44
  • Farr 40

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — measured reaching advantage in race results.

weak upwind · weak reaching · weak downwind

Boats 134
Share 10.9%
  • First 40.7
  • X-43
  • Grand Soleil 40

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — measured downwind advantage in race results.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 120
Share 9.8%
  • Fortuna 9
  • Mat 10.10
  • Aphrodite 101

KEELRUN

Compact scale · upright posture · neutral reserve — upwind-neutral in race results.

strong upwind · strong reaching · strong downwind

Boats 110
Share 9.0%
  • First 31.7
  • J-105
  • Sunfast 3200

SPARKFLEX

Minimal scale · upright posture · tender reserve — downwind-constrained in race results.

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 33
Share 2.7%
  • J-80 OD
  • J-24
  • J-70 ONE DESIGN

Event cohort view · 28 boats · as of 2026-09-02

The American ORC community is one of the most competitive in the world. US Sailing provides the national framework for certification and handicap racing. The East Coast hosts traditional offshore races with strong IRC participation, while the Pacific coast has developed a reputation for technical innovation and competitive depth. The Gulf coast fleet has grown significantly in recent years, adding warm-water year-round programs to the mix. The Great Lakes circuit — Chicago–Mackinac, Bayview–Mackinac, the Verve Cup — adds a fourth offshore tradition with short-summer-season intensity and a freshwater-chop signature.

American teams at international events represent consistent high performance. The United States sends boats to every major offshore championship — the Rolex Fastnet, the Sydney Hobart, Mediterranean races, and transatlantic events. American design houses continue to push innovation, and American crews maintain competitive standing across all rating and archetype categories. This is a nation where offshore racing is both established and dynamic.

Selected Race Result

Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026 — twenty American class wins.

201 of the 1,224-boat American fleet competed at the Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026, sailed 10–11 July 2026. 1 race, offshore, across 232 published entries in 22 classes. The headline American result: boats from this fleet took 1st in 20 of the 22 published classes.

Headlines

The American class winners on the way to Mackinac.

This race publishes class ranks; FleetEdge computes no pace products for it — no course distance is published for the Chicago-Mac, so the race standings are the whole published record. The boards below list the class winners from the 201 American boats in the standings FleetEdge holds; the most recent race in the current published view with American participation, the Round the Island Race of 11 July 2026, closes this panel by archetype.

Race Standings

Class 1 PIED PIPER · 1st
Class 2 MARGOT · 1st
Class 3 SHINE BOX · 1st
Class 4 RENEGADE · 1st
Class 5 EAGLES WINGS · 1st
Class 6 DRUMLECK · 1st
Class 7 WARLOCK · 1st
Class 8 RAMBLER · 1st
Class 9 ACCORD · 1st
Classes 9 handicap classes

Race Standings

GL 52 MOCKINGBIRD · 1st
J/105 Whistler · 1st
J/109 NORTHSTAR · 1st
J/111 NO SURPRISE · 1st
Beneteau 36.7 SOULSHINE · 1st
Beneteau 40.7 MOJO · 1st
Level 35 NV · 1st
T-10 ERICA · 1st
Classes 8 one-design classes

Race Standings

Cruising 1 SOCIABLE · 1st
Cruising 2 JASMIN · 2nd
Cruising 3 AVE MARIA · 1st
Double-Handed EXILE · 1st
Classes 4 cruising and double-handed classes

Race Standings carry each boat’s published class place in the one race sailed; a class is listed where an American boat won it, and Cruising 2 shows the best American finish. Population: the 201 American boats in the standings FleetEdge holds, from 217 standings rows across 232 published entries. Source: published Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026 standings and FleetEdge published data (as of 2026-09-02).

Stories

What we saw on the way to Mackinac.

Championship Citation

PIED PIPER — Chicago-Mac 2026 Winner, Class 1.

PIED PIPER (USA 97510 AEROSTREAM, Reichel/Pugh 68, Esprit build) finished 1st in the published Class 1 standings of the Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026 — the top handicap class of the race, sailed 10–11 July 2026. The hull reads as AEROSTREAM in FleetEdge’s public classification: the large, stiff, level-postured type built to carry sail up the lake. The published record for this race is a class rank in one offshore race; no course distance is published, so there is no pace figure to add to the place — the win stands on the standings alone.

  • 1st · Class 1, published series standings
  • AEROSTREAM · Reichel/Pugh 68 platform
Complete data Chicago-Mac 2026
Multi-Champion Cluster

Seven class wins for Johnstone-designed J/Boats hulls.

Seven of the twenty American class wins went to J/Boats designs from the Johnstone drawing board. RENEGADE AEROFORCE (J/133) won Class 4, WARLOCK KEELRUN (J/105 Turbo) Class 7 and RAMBLER HEFTLINE (J/99) Class 8 on handicap; Whistler KEELRUN, NORTHSTAR LEANRUN and NO SURPRISE HEFTLINE took the J/105, J/109 and J/111 one-design classes; and EXILE HEFTLINE (J/88) won the Double-Handed class. The same designer family spans four archetypes across those seven winners — the J/Boats range is broad enough that its hulls sit in different design types, and each won its own class on the same night.

  • Class wins: 7 · Class 4, Class 7, Class 8, J/105, J/109, J/111, Double-Handed
  • Archetypes among the seven: AEROFORCE · KEELRUN · HEFTLINE · LEANRUN
Complete data Chicago-Mac 2026
Nationality / Class Cluster

Santa Cruz 70s stacked behind the Class 1 winner.

Behind PIED PIPER in Class 1, the next three places all went to Bill Lee’s Santa Cruz 70. VALOR AEROSTREAM took 2nd, Dynamis AEROSTREAM 3rd and CATAPULT AEROSTREAM 4th, with EVOLUTION 8th and TRIDENT 10th — five of the same 1980s downwind sled in the eleven American Class 1 boats FleetEdge holds standings for. Every one of those eleven reads AEROSTREAM in the current published classification: a class that is, in archetype terms, a single design type racing itself up Lake Michigan.

  • Class 1 podium slots 2–3: VALOR (2nd), Dynamis (3rd) · CATAPULT 4th
  • Santa Cruz 70s: 5 of 11 American Class 1 boats in FleetEdge’s standings coverage · all eleven AEROSTREAM
Complete data Chicago-Mac 2026
Fleet vs Race Composition Shift

A Great Lakes field that leans LEANRUN against the national AEROCORE lead.

The 1,224-boat American national fleet leads with AEROCORE at 18.8%, LEANRUN at 18.3%, HEFTLINE at 15.0% and AEROSTREAM at 14.7%, with 1,215 of 1,224 classified in the public archetype model. The 214-boat classified Chicago-Mac field tilts differently: LEANRUN leads it at 26.6% — the First 36.7s, J/109s and Level 35s that fill the one-design starts — AEROSTREAM rises to 18.7% on the Class 1 and Class 2 sleds, HEFTLINE holds 18.2%, and the fleet’s leading AEROCORE slips to 16.4%. KEELRUN, 9.0% of the national fleet, is 4.7% of this field. The Johnstone R / J/Boats share of the national fleet is 22.7%; the race is a lake-sized sample of the same fleet, weighted toward its production one-design classes.

  • Fleet baseline: AEROCORE 18.8% · LEANRUN 18.3% · HEFTLINE 15.0% · AEROSTREAM 14.7% · classified 1,215 of 1,224
  • Race field (214 classified boats): LEANRUN 26.6% · AEROSTREAM 18.7% · HEFTLINE 18.2% · AEROCORE 16.4%
  • Designer share: Johnstone R / J/Boats 22.7% of the national fleet
Complete data Archetype groups
Race Archetypes

Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026 — the classified field, 10–11 July 2026.

Archetype assignments dated 2026-09-02 — the FleetEdge analysis nearest this event.

The whole classified entry of the race sorted by archetype in the FleetEdge analysis published nearest the event — the profile of that field, not a US national distribution; the national picture stays in Fleet DNA.

LEANRUN

— upwind-neutral in race results.

Boats 57
Share 26.6%

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

Boats 40
Share 18.7%

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured upwind advantage in race results.

Boats 39
Share 18.2%

AEROCORE

Large scale · tender reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

Boats 35
Share 16.4%

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — measured reaching advantage in race results.

Boats 21
Share 9.8%

KEELRUN

Compact scale · upright posture · neutral reserve — upwind-neutral in race results.

Boats 10
Share 4.7%

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — measured downwind advantage in race results.

Boats 10
Share 4.7%

SPARKFLEX

Minimal scale · upright posture · tender reserve — downwind-constrained in race results.

Boats 2
Share 0.9%

Classified fleet view · 1,215 of 1,224 classified · as of 2026-09-02

Fleet Stories

The American fleet's signature.

Designer Density

The J/Boats backbone — 278 hulls, 22.7% of the American fleet.

Johnstone R / J/Boats carries 278 of the 1,224-boat American fleet's hulls — 22.7%, the largest single-designer concentration in the fleet. The J-line (J-105, J-120, J-111, J-109) is the structural backbone of American club racing across all four coastlines, from Newport and the Chesapeake to the Great Lakes and San Francisco Bay — and four of the fleet's five most popular classes are J/Boats designs: the J-111 (45 boats), J-105 (42), J-120 (33), and J-109 (29).

  • Johnstone R / J/Boats: 22.7% of the fleet
  • J-line in the top-5 classes: J-111 (45) · J-105 (42) · J-120 (33) · J-109 (29)
Complete data Designer mix
Archetype Density

AEROCORE leads the American fleet — the production racer-cruiser backbone.

AEROCORE leads the American fleet at 230 boats (18.8%), with LEANRUN second at 224 boats (18.3%) — together 37.1% of the fleet. AEROCORE is the large-scale production racer-cruiser tier — hulls like the First 36 and J-120 — that runs downwind-neutral in race results, and it is the shape American club and coastal racing is built around. LEANRUN is the large-scale tier whose balanced signature fits America's club traditions. HEFTLINE follows on 184 boats (15.0%) — the compact, stiff-platform tier of the J-111, Farr 30, and Cape 31, where America's one-design circuits meet handicap racing — with AEROSTREAM fourth on 180 boats (14.7%), the towering-rig upwind-power tier that suits the windward-leeward and grand-prix end — the championship-grade archetype that carried INTERLODGE 44 to her Class A world title.

  • AEROCORE: 18.8% of the fleet
  • LEANRUN: 224 boats · 18.3% · combined top-2 37.1%
Complete data Archetype groups
Popular Classes

The boats that define American racing.

J-111 (45)

J/Boats' carbon-rig 37 — one-design or handicap, always quick.

First 36.7 (44)

Beneteau's mid-size Farr-designed IRC weapon of the 2000s.

J-105 (42)

The J/Boats 35 that built club asymmetric racing.

J-120 (33)

A racer-cruiser from Tillotson-Pearson.

J-109 (29)

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

Racing Fleets

Fleets in USA.

USA ORC

A major national ORC fleet, analyzed.

How It Works

See how FleetEdge turns certificates into intelligence.
Continue

Go deeper.

USA ORC Fleet

The fleet lens on American ORC racing — East Coast, Great Lakes, Gulf, and Pacific — built on the J/Boats backbone and the AEROSTREAM racing tier.

ORC Worlds 2026 — Sorrento

The marquee outcome that brought SUMMER STORM home with the Class 0 trophy — a 94-boat, 29-nation championship with four class titles.

Fleet Overview

The global offshore racing landscape and how American fleets fit within it.

Fleet Archetypes

The eight-archetype FleetEdge framework — the 2026 census — underneath every chart and story on this page.

Join the world's offshore racing teams.

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

See USA Racing — USA ORC See Fleet Overview