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
1,218 boats 53 events 395 races 924 race observations Domestic competitive fleet · as of 2026-08-20
Kinship

American waters hold their own story.

Annapolis, Newport, Key West, Great Lakes, Block Island — 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.
Photo: Shutterstock

Domestic competitive fleet · 1,218 boats · as of 2026-08-20

Fleet DNA

How the USA ORC fleet is built.

1,218 boats in the fleet. 1,206 ORC-rated and 12 mapped IRC entries attributed across the eight archetypes of the 2026 census — eleven measured slots.

Nearly all of the fleet is classified; 9 (0.7% 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 J/Boats-anchored collective at scale across four coastlines, and the large, upright end of it now sits clearly at the head of the table. AEROCORE leads on count at 21.1% (257 boats) — the large-scale, upright, tender-reserve hulls of the First 36, First 45, Bavaria CR 46, and J-120 tier, with a measured downwind advantage in the banked race evidence. AEROSTREAM sits second at 17.0% (207 boats), the towering-rig, upwind-strong platforms at the TP-52, XP-44, and Farr 40 tier. LEANRUN follows at 15.6% (190 boats), large-scale, upright all-rounders in the First 36.7 and J-109 mold, with HEFTLINE fourth at 14.1% (172 boats) — compact, stiff-reserve platforms at the J-111, Farr 30, and Cape 31 tier. Together the leading four account for 826 of the fleet's 1,209 classified boats, anchored by a J/Boats designer signature (277 boats, 22.7% of the 1,218-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.

  • AEROCORE 21.1% · 257 boats
  • AEROSTREAM 17.0% · 207 boats
  • LEANRUN 15.6% · 190 boats

Dimension emphasis: Comparative Time · Crew Residual · Sail Drive

Johnstone R / J/Boats (277 boats, 22.7% 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 distribution — the census archetypes across eleven measured slots.

AEROCORE

Large scale · upright posture · tender reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 257
Share 21.1%
  • First 36
  • Bavaria CR 46
  • J-120

KEELRUN

Compact scale · upright posture · neutral reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

moderate upwind · strong reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 112
Share 9.2%
  • First 31.7
  • J-105
  • Sunfast 3200

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 172
Share 14.1%
  • J-111
  • Farr 30
  • Cape 31

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

strong upwind · weak reaching · strong downwind

Boats 207
Share 17.0%
  • TP-52
  • XP-44
  • Farr 40

LEANRUN

Large scale · upright posture — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 190
Share 15.6%
  • First 36.7
  • J-109
  • First 35

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

weak upwind · neutral reaching · weak downwind

Boats 114
Share 9.4%
  • Fortuna 9
  • Mat 10.10
  • Aphrodite 101

SPARKFLEX

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

weak upwind · moderate reaching · weak downwind

Boats 32
Share 2.6%
  • J-80 OD
  • J-24
  • J-70 ONE DESIGN

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — reaching-constrained in banked race evidence.

neutral upwind · weak reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 125
Share 10.3%
  • First 40.7
  • X-43
  • Grand Soleil 40
At a glance

USA ORC — structural profile.

Scope
1,218 boats
1,206 ORC-rated · 12 mapped-IRC
Top 3 archetypes
  1. AEROCORE — 257 boats (21.1%)
  2. AEROSTREAM — 207 boats (17.0%)
  3. LEANRUN — 190 boats (15.6%)
Eight canonical performance archetypes cluster the fleet by dimensional signature. See the full map →
Top designer cluster
Johnstone R
277 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.

Domestic competitive fleet · as of 2026-08-20

Event cohort view · 59 boats · as of 2026-08-20

Selected Race Result

2025 Annapolis to Newport Race — ORC offshore classes.

59 of the 1,218 fleet boats competed in the classic Chesapeake-to-Rhode-Island offshore. One distance race, scored across six ORC divisions with a PHRF fleet alongside. June 2025.

Headlines

Who led the divisions.

Five class winners across the fleet

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

Arcadia takes ORC Open 2

The LM-46 (USA-61520) won ORC Open 2, the deepest published division win on the course — first of 13 in class, ahead of the J-121 DARK STORM and the XP-44 PHANTOM.

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 podium positions across the divisions — the J-109, J-111, J-120, J-121, J-122, and J-99 lines all placed, the production backbone of the American fleet doing the everyday distance-racing work.

Most recent for the American ORC fleet: Cowes Week 2026 (1–7 August 2026). The Annapolis-to-Newport result stays this page's featured event; Cowes Week 2026 is the latest event in the current published view in which the fleet's boats sailed, and its event-cohort archetype view is rendered in the Race Archetypes section further down this panel.

Stories

The Annapolis-to-Newport story.

Championship Citation

ARCADIA — Event Champion, ORC Open 2.

USA-61520 Arcadia AEROCORE (LM-46) won ORC Open 2 at the 2025 Annapolis to Newport Race — first of 13 in the deepest published division win of the Chesapeake-to-Rhode-Island offshore. The FleetEdge analysis nearest the event groups Arcadia with AEROCORE, the large, upright family that led the course cohort at 37.3%. The class behind: the J-121 DARK STORM second and the XP-44 PHANTOM third. A clean class title at the front of the East Coast distance fleet.

  • ORC Open 2: 1st of 13
  • Class behind: DARK STORM (J-121) 2nd · PHANTOM (XP-44) 3rd
  • Archetype: AEROCORE (the event cohort's leading family)
Complete data Annapolis to Newport 2025
Multi-Champion Cluster

Five American class winners across one offshore.

The fleet took five division wins at Annapolis-to-Newport — Arcadia AEROCORE (ORC Open 2, LM-46), ZUUL AEROCORE (ORC Open 3, Aerodyne 38), Blue Skies AEROFORCE (Performance Cruiser 1, Alden Skye 51), TWIGA LEANFORCE (Performance Cruiser 2, J-109), and SUNDOG AEROCORE (Double-Handed, J-111). The shared thread is the J/Boats backbone — TWIGA and SUNDOG are J-line winners, and Johnstone hulls fill the runner-up slots across the scoreboard: the J-121 DARK STORM, the J-122 ZIG ZAG, the J-120 WINDBORN, the J-35 ABIENTOT, and a pair of J-99s all placed. Five wins across five divisions 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 Open to cruiser-rated to short-handed.

  • Class winners: 5 divisions (Open 2/3, PC 1/2, Double-Handed)
  • J/Boats winners: TWIGA (J-109) · SUNDOG (J-111)
  • Spread across Open, cruiser-rated, and short-handed classes
Complete data Annapolis to Newport 2025
Archetype-Conditions Dominance

AEROCORE held the front in the conditions that prevailed.

AEROCORE was the leading archetype on the 2025 Annapolis-to-Newport course, carrying 37.3% of the classified entries (22 of 59) — well over one and a half times its 21.1% fleet-wide share — and the large, upright platforms converted on the day, taking both published Open-division wins through Arcadia and ZUUL. On the conditions that ran for this Chesapeake-to-Rhode-Island offshore, the tender-reserve AEROCORE hulls — the large-scale, upright family that carries a measured downwind advantage in the banked race evidence — 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 different pressure pattern would have rewarded a different family. On the breeze that prevailed for this running, the cohort's largest family carried the result — with AEROSTREAM next at 27.1% and AEROFORCE at 11.9%.

  • AEROCORE share on the course 37.3% (22 of 59 classified)
  • Next tier: AEROSTREAM 27.1% · AEROFORCE 11.9%
  • 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 AEROCORE than the home fleet.

The 1,218-boat US ORC home fleet runs AEROCORE at 21.1% (257 boats), but the classified Annapolis-to-Newport cohort ran the family at 37.3% — well over one and a half times the fleet-wide share. A self-selecting distance offshore pulls the large, upright platforms forward, while the broad home fleet — AEROSTREAM second at 17.0%, LEANRUN third at 15.6%, HEFTLINE fourth at 14.1%, and a long tail down through LEANFORCE and SPARKFLEX — 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.

  • AEROCORE: 37.3% in event vs 21.1% fleet-wide
  • Event cohort: 59 classified of 59 entries in the FleetEdge view
  • Home fleet: 1,209 classified across the eight-archetype census
Complete data Archetype groups
Race Archetypes

59 boats classified in the 2025 Annapolis to Newport Race.

Archetype assignments dated 2026-08-20 — the FleetEdge analysis nearest this event.

AEROCORE

Large scale · upright posture · tender reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 22
Share 37.3%

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 16
Share 27.1%

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — reaching-constrained in banked race evidence.

Boats 7
Share 11.9%

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 5
Share 8.5%

LEANRUN

Large scale · upright posture — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 6
Share 10.2%

KEELRUN

Compact scale · upright posture · neutral reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 2
Share 3.4%

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 1
Share 1.7%
Race Archetypes

Cowes Week 2026 (1–7 August 2026) — the most recent event for the American ORC fleet.

Cowes Week 2026, sailed 1–7 August 2026 out of Cowes, is the latest event in the current published view in which the fleet's boats sailed. This grid is the event lens for the whole classified Cowes Week cohort — how the boats classified in the FleetEdge analysis nearest the event cluster across the archetypes — not a US-only cut, and distinct from both the fleet's Fleet DNA and the Annapolis-to-Newport lens above.

Archetype assignments dated 2026-08-20 — the FleetEdge analysis nearest this event.

AEROCORE

Large scale · upright posture · tender reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 3
Share 20.0%

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence.

Boats 4
Share 26.7%

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — reaching-constrained in banked race evidence.

Boats 3
Share 20.0%

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — reaching-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 1
Share 6.7%

LEANRUN

Large scale · upright posture — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 2
Share 13.3%

SPARKFLEX

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

Boats 1
Share 6.7%

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence.

Boats 1
Share 6.7%

Classified fleet view · 1,209 of 1,218 classified · as of 2026-08-20

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 277 boats — 22.7% of the 1,218-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: 277 boats · 22.7% of the 1,218-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

AEROCORE leads the American fleet — 50 boats clear.

AEROCORE leads the US ORC fleet at 21.1% — 257 boats of the 1,218-boat fleet — with AEROSTREAM second at 17.0% (207 boats), 50 boats back. The American table has a clear leader: the large-scale, upright, tender-reserve AEROCORE hulls of the First 36, First 45, Bavaria CR 46, and J-120 tier hold first rank on count, ahead of the towering-rig, upwind-strong AEROSTREAM platforms at the TP-52, XP-44, and Farr 40 tier. LEANRUN (15.6%, 190 boats) gives the fleet a large-scale, upright third rank. The breadth is real — every one of the 2026 census's eleven measured slots is populated — and the fleet still carries its weight in the biggest families, but the head of the table is not shared.

  • AEROCORE: 257 boats · 21.1% of the 1,218-boat fleet
  • Second / third: AEROSTREAM 207 (17.0%) · LEANRUN 190 (15.6%)
  • Source: fleet-wide archetype density (current build)
Complete data Fleet composition
Popular Classes

The boats that define American ORC racing.

First 36.7 (44)

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

J-111 (44)

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

J-105 (42)

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

J-120 (33)

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

J-109 (29)

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 American fleet anchored by the J/Boats production family.

ORC Worlds 2026 — Sorrento

The international championship where the American maxi sharp end races the world — 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 eight-archetype FleetEdge framework of the 2026 census — the framework underneath every chart, story, and headline on this hub, and how eleven measured slots resolved into eight.

The ORC Promise

Why the international rating system that runs the Worlds is the same system that rates the US domestic fleet across all archetypes of the 2026 census.

Analyze the USA ORC fleet in FleetEdge.

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

Explore FleetEdge Explore USA Racing