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
1,224 boats 57 events 196 races 924 race observations Domestic competitive fleet · as of 2026-09-02
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 · 1,224 boats · as of 2026-09-02

Fleet DNA

How the USA ORC fleet is built.

1,224 boats in the fleet. 1,212 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 18.8% (230 boats) — the large-scale, tender-reserve hulls of the First 36, First 45, Bavaria CR 46, and J-120 tier, downwind-neutral in race results. LEANRUN sits second at 18.3% (224 boats), large-scale, upright all-rounders in the First 36.7 and J-109 mold. HEFTLINE follows at 15.0% (184 boats) — compact, stiff-reserve platforms at the J-111, Farr 30, and Cape 31 tier — with AEROSTREAM fourth at 14.7% (180 boats), the towering-rig, upwind-strong platforms at the TP-52, XP-44, and Farr 40 tier. Together the leading four account for 818 of the fleet's 1,215 classified boats, anchored by a J/Boats designer signature (278 boats, 22.7% of the 1,224-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 18.8% · 230 boats
  • LEANRUN 18.3% · 224 boats
  • HEFTLINE 15.0% · 184 boats

Dimension emphasis: Comparative Time · Crew Residual · Sail Drive

Johnstone R / J/Boats (278 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 · 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
At a glance

USA ORC — 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.

Domestic competitive fleet · as of 2026-09-02

Event cohort view · 217 boats · as of 2026-09-02

Selected Race Result

Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026 — the Great Lakes offshore classic.

217 of the 1,224 boats in the American ORC fleet's view sailed the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, dated 10–11 July 2026 in the current published view — one distance race the length of Lake Michigan, published as class standings across 22 divisions in a 232-entry regatta.

Headlines

Who won the divisions.

Boats in the American ORC fleet's view won 21 of the 22 published divisions at the Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026. This event publishes ranks and points; FleetEdge computes no pace products for it — the boards below are the published class standings, first place in each division.

Race Standings · handicap divisions

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
GL 52 MOCKINGBIRD · 1st

Race Standings · one-design divisions

Beneteau 36.7 SOULSHINE · 1st
Beneteau 40.7 MOJO · 1st
J-105 Whistler · 1st
J-109 NORTHSTAR · 1st
J-111 NO SURPRISE · 1st
Level 35 NV · 1st
T-10 ERICA · 1st

Race Standings · cruising, double-handed and multihull

Cruising 1 SOCIABLE · 1st
Cruising 3 AVE MARIA · 1st
Double-Handed EXILE · 1st
Multihull Unleaded II · 1st

Race Standings are the published series positions in each division, read at class grain; the Cruising 2 winner sits outside this fleet's view and is not listed. Published class field sizes are not carried at class grain in the current view, so no “of N” is shown; points and finish status are not rendered in this view. Source: FleetEdge published data (as of 2026-09-02).

Most recent for the American ORC fleet: Cowes Week 2026 (1–7 August 2026). The Chicago YC Race to Mackinac result is 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 Chicago-to-Mackinac story.

Championship Citation

PIED PIPER — Event Champion, Class 1.

USA 97510 PIED PIPER AEROSTREAM (Rp-68, Reichel/Pugh) won Class 1 at the Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026 — 1st in the top handicap division of a 232-entry regatta. The FleetEdge analysis nearest the event groups PIED PIPER with AEROSTREAM, the towering, stiff-reserve family that took 18.7% of the classified field. The class behind: the Santa Cruz 70s VALOR AEROSTREAM second and Dynamis AEROSTREAM third, in a division of 11 boats resolved in FleetEdge's view. A class title at the biggest-boat end of the Great Lakes distance fleet.

  • Class 1: 1st (series position as published)
  • Class behind: VALOR (Santa Cruz 70) 2nd · Dynamis (Santa Cruz 70) 3rd
  • Archetype: AEROSTREAM (18.7% of the 214 boats classified in the event)
Complete data Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026
Multi-Champion Cluster

Seven J/Boats class wins in one race up the lake.

Johnstone-designed hulls won seven of the fleet's 21 division titles at the Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026 — Whistler KEELRUN (J-105), NORTHSTAR LEANRUN (J-109) and NO SURPRISE HEFTLINE (J-111) in the J/Boats one-design divisions, and RENEGADE AEROFORCE (J-133, Class 4), WARLOCK KEELRUN (J-105 Turbo, Class 7), RAMBLER HEFTLINE (J-99, Class 8) and EXILE HEFTLINE (J-88, Double-Handed) in mixed company. The shared thread is the designer, not the size of boat: the wins run from the 30-foot J-88 sailed two-handed to the 43-foot J-133, across one-design, handicap and short-handed scoring alike. Three of the seven came where the J/Boats family races itself; four came against everything else on the lake.

  • Class winners: 7 divisions (J-105 · J-109 · J-111 · Class 4 · Class 7 · Class 8 · Double-Handed)
  • Designer: Johnstone / J/Boats on every one of the seven
  • Spread across one-design, handicap and double-handed divisions
Complete data Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026
Nationality / Class Cluster

The sleds and the 52-footers filled the big-boat podiums.

Class 1's second and third places went to a pair of Santa Cruz 70s — VALOR AEROSTREAM and Dynamis AEROSTREAM — behind PIED PIPER, and in Class 2 two J-145s, MAIN STREET AEROSTREAM and SIC PARVIS MAGNA AEROSTREAM, tied for second behind the Neo-430 MARGOT. Read at archetype grain the cluster is wider still: every podium place in Classes 1, 2 and 3 and in the GL 52 division — twelve places across four divisions — went to AEROSTREAM platforms, the towering, stiff-reserve family of the TP-52, the Farr 40 and the West Coast sleds. Class 3 ran a Farr 40 Mod, a Farr 40 OD and a J-125 first through third; the GL 52 division was TP-52 and Pac-52 top to bottom. The same tier of platform kept the same slots wherever the big boats were scored.

  • Class 1 podium: PIED PIPER (Rp-68) 1st · VALOR (Santa Cruz 70) 2nd · Dynamis (Santa Cruz 70) 3rd
  • Class 2 podium: MARGOT (Neo-430) 1st · MAIN STREET and SIC PARVIS MAGNA (J-145) tied 2nd
  • AEROSTREAM: 12 of 12 podium places in Classes 1, 2, 3 and GL 52
Complete data Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026
Fleet vs Race Composition Shift

The Mac field leaned toward LEANRUN and the one-design tiers.

The home fleet runs LEANRUN at 18.3% (224 boats) in the current published view, but the classified Mac field ran the family at 26.6% (57 of 214) — the leading archetype on the lake, while the fleet-wide leader AEROCORE slipped from 18.8% to 16.4%. The shift is the one-design tiers: the Beneteau 36.7, J-109 and Level 35 divisions alone put 32 LEANRUN hulls on the line. HEFTLINE moved up too, 15.0% at home to 18.2% on the lake — the J-111 and T-10 one-designs, the J-88 and J-99 in the Double-Handed division and Class 8 — and AEROSTREAM from 14.7% to 18.7% as the 52-footers and the sleds turned out for the big-boat divisions. KEELRUN went the other way, 9.0% fleet-wide to 4.7% in the field. A single distance race up a lake is a self-selecting entry: the home fleet is the whole iceberg, the Mac field is its Great Lakes tip.

  • LEANRUN: 26.6% in the field vs 18.3% fleet-wide
  • Field: 214 classified of the 217 fleet boats in the event
  • Home fleet: the current published fleet view across the eight archetypes
Complete data Archetype groups
Race Archetypes

214 boats classified in the Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 2026.

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

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 ORC signature.

Designer Density

The J/Boats backbone of the American fleet.

Johnstone R / J/Boats anchors the US ORC fleet with 278 boats — 22.7% of the 1,224-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: 278 boats · 22.7% of the 1,224-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 — six boats clear.

AEROCORE leads the US ORC fleet at 18.8% — 230 boats of the 1,224-boat fleet — with LEANRUN second at 18.3% (224 boats), six boats back. The American table is led from the front by a narrow margin: 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, just ahead of the large-scale, upright LEANRUN all-rounders in the First 36.7 and J-109 mold. HEFTLINE (15.0%, 184 boats) gives the fleet a compact, stiff-reserve 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, with the head of the table decided by just six boats.

  • AEROCORE: 230 boats · 18.8% of the 1,224-boat fleet
  • Second / third: LEANRUN 224 (18.3%) · HEFTLINE 184 (15.0%)
  • 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 — the most-common class across the American ORC fleet.

J-111 (45)

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 Chicago YC Race to Mackinac 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.

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