USA ORC Fleet

US ORC racing — East Coast, Gulf Coast, Great Lakes, West Coast

Annapolis Charleston Key West Newport Block Island San Francisco Miami Detroit
1,005 boats 43 events 290 races 545 race observations Domestic competitive fleet · as of 2026-07-10
Kinship

American waters hold their own story.

Annapolis, Newport, Key West, Great Lakes, Block Island — find US offshore racing.

 Hidden Shape

11 archetypes.
How this fleet clusters before the results arrive.

How every American boat clusters, before the results arrive.

Domestic competitive fleet · 1,005 boats · as of 2026-07-10

Fleet DNA

How the USA ORC fleet is built.

1,005 boats in the fleet. 995 ORC-rated and 10 mapped IRC entries attributed across 11 archetypes.

997 boats are classified; 8 (0.8% of the fleet) are not yet classed in the public archetype model — a data-coverage note: a small number of boats lack enough certificate fields for classification, largely reflecting US-specific scoring authorities (PHRF crossover, ORR vs ORC) among recently added boats in one of the deepest national ORC fleets in the world.

The USA ORC Fleet Signature

The US ORC fleet is a light-and-agile, J/Boats-anchored collective at scale across four coastlines. AEROBLADE leads at 19.5% (196 boats), the light, agile sportboats built for quick acceleration and flat-water speed across Newport, San Francisco Bay, and Long Island Sound. GLIDEFORM follows at 17.5% (176 boats) — the low-drag efficient-flow tier tuned for reaching-angle speed. DEEPFRAME sits just behind at 16.2% (163 boats), with AEROMAX fourth at 13.1% (132 boats) — deep-hull stiff platforms and power-efficiency hybrids at the TP52, GP42, and Melges IC37 tier. Together the leading four account for 667 of the fleet's 997 classified boats, anchored by a J/Boats designer signature (213 boats, 21.2% of the 1,005-boat fleet) well ahead of Farr Design — one of the deepest and broadest national ORC fleets in the world, racing from NYYC Newport down to Charleston, Key West, and across to San Francisco.

  • AEROBLADE 19.5% · 196 boats
  • GLIDEFORM 17.5% · 176 boats
  • DEEPFRAME 16.2% · 163 boats

Dimension emphasis: Comparative Time · Crew Residual · Sail Drive

Johnstone R / J/Boats (213 boats, 21.2% of the fleet) anchors the designer signature — the J-120, J-105, J-109, J-111, and J-88 production family is the structural backbone of the American racer-cruiser ecology and holds a leading share of the fleet above 15%. Farr Design follows in the most-common band. The Annapolis-to-Newport offshore, Block Island Race Week, Charleston Race Week, the GL52 Ugotta Regatta on the Great Lakes, and the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta series anchor the flagship US ORC calendar.

Complete data Latest published view

The full 11-archetype distribution.

AEROBLADE

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

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 196
Share 19.5%
  • TP-52
  • Farr 40
  • XP-44

GLIDEFORM

Low-drag hull delivering smooth, efficient downwind acceleration.

weak upwind · moderate reaching · strong downwind

Boats 176
Share 17.5%
  • 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 163
Share 16.2%
  • J-109
  • First 36
  • J-120

AEROMAX

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

strong upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 132
Share 13.1%
  • First 40.7
  • First 40
  • Grand Soleil 40

GRAVITYRUN

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

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · strong downwind

Boats 106
Share 10.5%
  • First 36.7
  • First 34.7
  • X-332

IRONWIND

Stiff, stable-drive platform with predictable load behavior.

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 56
Share 5.6%
  • J-80 OD
  • J-24
  • Melges 24 OD

STEELFORM

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

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 48
Share 4.8%
  • Bavaria CR 46
  • Dufour 41 Performance
  • Hanse 400 E

STEELCORE

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

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 47
Share 4.7%
  • Sunfast 37
  • Dufour 40
  • Grand Soleil 37 BC

STORMLINE

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

moderate upwind · strong reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 35
Share 3.5%
  • Comfortina 32
  • Fenix
  • Aphrodite 101

KEELFLEX

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

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 25
Share 2.5%
  • First 31.7
  • Express
  • First 31.7 LR

HEADFORCE

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

strong upwind · weak reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 13
Share 1.3%
  • Fortuna 9
  • Miura
  • Elan 333
At a glance

USA ORC — structural profile.

Scope
1,005 boats
995 ORC-rated · 10 mapped-IRC
Top 3 archetypes
  1. AEROBLADE — 196 boats (19.5%)
  2. GLIDEFORM — 176 boats (17.5%)
  3. DEEPFRAME — 163 boats (16.2%)
Eleven canonical performance archetypes cluster the fleet by dimensional signature. See the full map →
Top designer cluster
Johnstone R
213 boats (21.2%) — the most-represented design voice in this fleet.

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

Domestic competitive fleet · as of 2026-07-10

Event cohort view · 64 boats · as of 2026-07-10

Selected Race Result

2025 Annapolis to Newport Race — ORC offshore classes.

64 of the 1,005 fleet boats competed in the classic Chesapeake-to-Rhode-Island offshore. One distance race, scored across six ORC classes plus a double-handed division. June 2025.

Headlines

Who led the divisions.

Six class winners across the fleet

American ORC boats topped six divisions on the Annapolis-to-Newport track — ORC Open 1, 2, and 3, both Performance Cruiser divisions, and the Double-Handed class. A broad, multi-class result rather than a single-boat sweep.

OC JV66 TEMPTATION takes ORC Open 1

The Judel-Vrolijk JV-66 (USA-119) won the headline ORC Open 1 division — the deepest-rated class on the course — ahead of the J-105 KASHMIR and the Kernan-Courouble 47 DREAM CRUSHER.

Rank-results event

The Annapolis-to-Newport result is published as finishing-order standings; FleetEdge surfaces the class podiums rather than corrected-time dimension leaders for this distance race.

A J/Boats-heavy podium spread

Johnstone R / J/Boats hulls fill the podium positions across multiple classes — the J-105, J-109, J-111, J-120, and J-99 lines all placed, the production backbone of the American fleet doing the everyday distance-racing work.

Stories

The Annapolis-to-Newport story.

Championship Citation

OC JV66 TEMPTATION — Event Champion, ORC Open 1.

USA-119 OC JV66 TEMPTATION AEROBLADE (JV-66, Judel-Vrolijk, Goetz build) won ORC Open 1 at the 2025 Annapolis to Newport Race — a class win on the headline division of the Chesapeake-to-Rhode-Island offshore. FleetEdge classifies TEMPTATION as AEROBLADE, the light-and-agile platform archetype that leads the American fleet at 19.5%. The win came on the deepest-rated class of the course, ahead of the J-105 KASHMIR and the Kernan-Courouble 47 DREAM CRUSHER. A clean class title for the maxi end of the East Coast distance fleet.

  • ORC Open 1: 1st in class
  • Class behind: KASHMIR (J-105) 2nd · DREAM CRUSHER (Kernan-Courouble 47) 3rd
  • Archetype: AEROBLADE (the fleet's leading family)
Complete data Annapolis to Newport 2025
Multi-Champion Cluster

Six American class winners across one offshore.

The fleet took six division wins at Annapolis-to-Newport — OC JV66 TEMPTATION AEROBLADE (ORC Open 1), Arcadia STEELFORM (ORC Open 2, LM-46), ZUUL AEROBLADE (ORC Open 3, Aerodyne 38), Blue Skies AEROMAX (Performance Cruiser 1, Alden Skye 51), TWIGA AEROMAX (Performance Cruiser 2, J-109), and SUNDOG DEEPFRAME (Double-Handed, J-111). The shared thread is the J/Boats backbone — TWIGA and SUNDOG are J-line boats, and Johnstone R hulls fill the runner-up slots across the board. Six wins across six classes is a breadth result: the American fleet did not put one boat on top of everything; it put a boat on top of every kind of division, from grand-prix Open to cruiser-rated to short-handed.

  • Class winners: 6 divisions (Open 1/2/3, PC 1/2, Double-Handed)
  • J/Boats winners: TWIGA (J-109) · SUNDOG (J-111)
  • Spread across grand-prix, cruiser-rated, and short-handed classes
Complete data Annapolis to Newport 2025
Archetype-Conditions Dominance

AEROBLADE held the front in the conditions that prevailed.

AEROBLADE was the dominant archetype on the 2025 Annapolis-to-Newport course, carrying 33.3% of the classified entries — well ahead of its fleet-wide share — and the light, agile platforms converted on the day. On the conditions that ran for this Chesapeake-to-Rhode-Island offshore, the acceleration-first AEROBLADE hulls held the front through the transitions that define a distance race down the Bay and up the coast. This is a race-day signal, not a property of the course alone: a heavy-air reaching pattern or a light-running second half would have rewarded a different family. On the breeze and sea state that prevailed for this running, the agile platforms that the American fleet is built around carried the result — with DEEPFRAME next at 15.9% and STEELFORM at 14.3%.

  • AEROBLADE share on the course 33.3% (21 of 63 classified)
  • Next tier: DEEPFRAME 15.9% · STEELFORM 14.3%
  • Conditional read: result reflects the conditions on the day, not the course alone
Complete data Annapolis to Newport 2025
Fleet vs Race Composition Shift

The offshore cohort leaned harder toward AEROBLADE than the home fleet.

The 1,005-boat US ORC home fleet runs AEROBLADE at 19.5% (196 of the 1,005-boat fleet), but the 63-boat classified Annapolis-to-Newport cohort ran AEROBLADE at 33.3% — well above the fleet-wide share. A self-selecting distance offshore pulls the light-and-agile sharp end forward: the boats that travel to a Bay-to-coast race skew toward the acceleration-first platforms, while the broad home fleet — with its 17.5% GLIDEFORM low-drag-glide tier, 16.2% DEEPFRAME deep-hull second rank, and the long tail down through KEELFLEX and HEADFORCE — reflects everyday club and regional racing. The event cohort is the racing tip; the fleet distribution is the whole iceberg. Both are American ORC, just at different selection points.

  • AEROBLADE: 33.3% in event vs 19.5% fleet-wide
  • Event cohort: 63 classified of 64 entries
  • Home fleet: 997 classified across 11 archetypes
Complete data Archetype groups
Race Archetypes

63 boats classified in the 2025 Annapolis to Newport Race.

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

AEROBLADE

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

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 21
Share 33.3%
  • Class 40
  • IMOCA derivatives
  • Pogo 30

DEEPFRAME

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

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 10
Share 15.9%
  • Swan 60
  • Nautor custom
  • ClubSwan 50

STEELFORM

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

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 9
Share 14.3%
  • J/70 (ORC)
  • Farr 280
  • SB20

AEROMAX

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

strong upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 6
Share 9.5%
  • TP52
  • GP42
  • Melges IC37

GRAVITYRUN

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

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · strong downwind

Boats 6
Share 9.5%
  • Swan 47
  • C&C 41
  • Sigma 38

BALANCECORE

A balance-sensitive, stability-positive design with a wide, forgiving performance envelope.

neutral upwind · moderate reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 5
Share 7.9%
  • First 40
  • Production cruiser-racers

GLIDEFORM

Low-drag hull delivering smooth, efficient downwind acceleration.

weak upwind · moderate reaching · strong downwind

Boats 4
Share 6.3%
  • J/109
  • Dehler 38
  • Italia 11

HEADFORCE

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

strong upwind · weak reaching · VMG downwind

Boats 1
Share 1.6%
  • First 34.7
  • Grand Soleil 37
  • Sun Fast 3300

STORMLINE

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

moderate upwind · strong reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 1
Share 1.6%
  • J/111
  • J/121
  • Fast 40+

Classified fleet view · 997 of 1,005 classified · as of 2026-07-10

Fleet Stories

The American ORC signature.

Designer Density

The J/Boats backbone of the American fleet.

Johnstone R / J/Boats anchors the US ORC fleet with 213 boats — 21.2% of the 1,005-boat roster, a dominant single-designer share well above the 15% threshold. The J-120, J-105, J-109, J-111, and J-88 production family is the structural backbone of the American racer-cruiser ecology, the production line that fills club racing from Long Island Sound to the Chesapeake to San Francisco Bay. No other drawing board comes close to that share in the US fleet; Farr Design follows in the most-common band. The J/Boats signature is one of the few designer-density signals across the FleetEdge platform with a leading share above 15% — a structural market presence, not a single-event cluster.

  • Johnstone R / J/Boats: 213 boats · 21.2% of the 1,005-boat fleet
  • Production family: J-120, J-105, J-109, J-111, J-88
  • Source: fleet-wide designer density (all USA fleet boats)
Complete data Fleet composition
Archetype Density

An AEROBLADE-led American fleet.

AEROBLADE leads the US ORC fleet at 19.5% — 196 boats of the 1,005-boat fleet — the light, agile platforms optimized for quick acceleration and flat-water speed. That is a long-running structural preference, not a single-race signal: the American fleet has consolidated around responsive, acceleration-first platforms that suit the windward-leeward and coastal racing that fills the East Coast and West Coast calendars. GLIDEFORM (17.5%, 176 boats) and DEEPFRAME (16.2%, 163 boats) follow, giving the fleet a low-drag-glide and deep-hull-efficiency second tier beneath the AEROBLADE lead. The breadth is real — all 11 archetypes are populated — but the design preference reads clearly toward light and agile at the top.

  • AEROBLADE: 196 boats · 19.5% of the 1,005-boat fleet
  • Second / third: GLIDEFORM 176 (17.5%) · DEEPFRAME 163 (16.2%)
  • Source: fleet-wide archetype density (current build)
Complete data Fleet composition
Popular Classes

The boats that define American ORC racing.

First 36.7 (40)

A Bénéteau-built Farr Design one-design racer-cruiser — the single most-common class across the American ORC fleet.

J-105 (37)

The Johnstone R / J/Boats sprit-boat one-design — a strict-class fixture of US club and offshore racing.

J-120 (31)

A J/Boats offshore racer-cruiser — the larger-displacement J-line workhorse of the East Coast distance calendar.

J-111 (30)

A J/Boats planing sportboat — the modern one-design that drives the American windward-leeward and coastal fleets.

J-109 (22)

A J/Boats racer-cruiser — a durable offshore one-design that anchors the upwind-efficient tier of the fleet.

Continue

Go deeper.

Sailing in the USA

ORC offshore racing across American waters — East Coast, Great Lakes, Gulf, and Pacific. The country lens on the 1,005-boat fleet anchored by the J/Boats production family.

ORC Worlds 2026 — Sorrento

The international championship where the American maxi sharp end races the world — a 94-boat, 29-nation championship, the global frame above the home distance calendar that the Annapolis-to-Newport result belongs to.

ORC World Fleet

The international championship-circuit fleet that hosts the Worlds, the Continentals, and the Double-Handed championships — the broader frame above the American domestic fleet.

Italy ORC Fleet

Tyrrhenian and Adriatic offshore racing — one of Europe's deepest and most competitive ORC fleets, a structural counterpoint to the American J/Boats-anchored signature.

Fleet Archetypes

The 11-archetype FleetEdge framework — the framework underneath every chart, story, and headline on this hub.

The ORC Promise

Why the international rating system that runs the Worlds is the same system that rates the 1,005-boat US domestic fleet across all 11 archetypes.

Analyze the USA ORC fleet in FleetEdge.

Crew performance, boat archetype analysis, and competitive intelligence across all major regattas.

Explore FleetEdge Explore USA Racing