Between the 28 April and the 1st May. the start of the ORC season in Germany was kicked-off with the Maior race.

 

The regatta was sailed from Kiel Yacht Club outside the Olympic harbor of Schilksee. This year, a total of 30 ORC yachts divided into 3 divisions gathered in Kiel for the first race of the season and for many crews also the first real test of each yacht and its crew.

 

ORC division 1 was dominated by Silva Hispaniola - an Evento 42 and an ORC European Champion of 2011.

 

The crew work was great and efficient and despite being one of the smaller yachts in division 1, they comfortably beated - among others - the TP52 with Tim Kröger as skipper. Unfortunately, the successful Xp 44 Xenia did not participate as they are getting ready for the big show down during the North sea week.

 

Division 2 - on the other hand - had a good fleet of X-Yachts in the race with 2 X-35's, 1 IMX 40 and the new Xp 38 "Veolia" helmed by Torsten Bastiansen.

 

After handover of the yacht at Easter the crew have had only two training sessions in light air, so the excitement on board was great before the first start.

The wind was 18-23 knots from North East with quite a strong tight running westerly on Stollergrund which made quite a steep and "challenging" wave for all crews.

 

After an average start, the Xp 38 crew worked its way up the fleet and was first yacht at the top mark. But two steep waves stopped the yacht just at the mark which they hit in addition to be hit by an Bavaria Match 42 which came reaching into the top mark.

 

After making its 360 degrees turn for hitting the mark, the Xp 38 crew chased the pack and overtook them all ending 3rd on corrected time. Second race was started on 20-25 knots of wind, and the Veolia crew was a bit too occupied in changing the rig setup and missed the start by 2.5 min.

Despite a strong come-back and finishing first across the line, the time lost was too much - and Veolia landed as the 4th overall winner on corrected time.

 

The X-35, Niramo Extreme, won both races, through good speed, boat handling and tactics which were called by Jesper Bank.

 

The conditions changed on the second day of racing to 4-7 knots of wind, and with a perfect start, the Veolia led from start to finish catching divisions one yachts and winning comfortably both in class and overall.

 

For the second race the wind state low dropping to 3-5 knots on the final legs. Despite being chased hard by the X-35 Niramo Extreme, the Xp 38 Veolia stayed ahead and won the race.

 

For the final day of racing, the wind was back to 17-22 knots from East and the steep waves were also back. After another 3 races, where Veolia made 1,5 (early start), 1, they were narrowly beaten by 1 point after 7 races by the X-35, Niramo Extreme.

 

All in all, the Xp 38 crew was happy and impressed with the potential of their new yacht, and are looking forward to their next race at the X-Yachts Ostsee Cup in Heiligenhafen.

 

ORC division 3 was dominated by X-332's:

The top 3 position went to 3 X-332's that battled it out overall all 3 race days.

 

At the end, the standard X-332 Rubix was most consistent and won over the X-332 Sport from Kaj Haupthoff by 5 points equal points with the X-332 Chinook on third place.