Milan, Italy  -- The Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) is pleased to announce that this year's 2018 ORC Rules and the 2018 Velocity Prediction Program (VPP) used for generating certificates, Speed Guides, Target Speeds and other products is now available to Rating Officers worldwide as well as the public in the ORC's online Sailor Services system. For Rating Officers, they may now start issuing 2018 certificates according to their policies, even while some areas will continue to use their 2017 ratings for the remainder of their winter or antipodal summer seasons.

For the VPP, improvements in the Aero- and Hydrodynamic formulations based on CFD research conducted by Jason Ker and other designers on the ORC International Technical Committee has caused an increase in upwind rated speeds for most boats and also a slight increase in downwind speed too. In addition, work on improving the induced drag formulations from the rudder and a more realistic treatment of the effect of transverse crew weight position in light air has also increased the accuracy of the new VPP, with the overall rating changes between boats in the fleet kept to within a modest 0.5%.

For the IMS (International Measurement System) there are some clarifications in measurement procedures which should help improve their accuracy, the use of carbon in structures without penalty is now more clearly defined, and some rules have been modified to be more closely aligned with the Equipment Rules of Sailing (ERS) of World Sailing.

For the ORC Rating Rules, the limits on use of carbon in construction is now more closely aligned to modern boatbuilding standards, a modification of RRS 49.2 makes hiking easier to control, minimum crew weights are now defined when needed, course lengths have a prescribed accuracy for scoring, and explanations of the formulations used in simple scoring options are now more clearly defined as well.

In the ORC Green Book rules for championship events there are several new guidelines that included suggested and mandatory use of scoring software, race management software and tracking systems in future events, as well as new definitions of the CDL limits for Class A, Class B and Class C based on the new VPP ratings for 2018. These are:

Class A: 16.5 ≥ CDL > 11.6 
Class B: 11.6 ≥ CDL > 9.8 
Class C: 9.8 ≥ CDL > 8.6

And on ORC International and ORC Club certificates, the Minimum Crew Weight now appears in the Crew Weight box, the "Ocean for PCS" pre-selected course is renamed to "Coastal / Long Distance", and the HHW measurement is now added to the headsail graphic.

The 2018 VPP is now uploaded to the ORC's unique Sailor Services system, where test certificates can be run for a nominal fee based on existing or modified certificate data for any one of over 100,000 measurement records in the ORC database of certificates issued in the last nine years, and even more from the pre-2004 IMS certificate database. For only €12 a test certificate can be run to determine what a boat's new rating will be in 2018, including the effects of changes to crew weight, sail dimensions, rig parameters or other changes in measurement. This web-based self-service system is unique to the world's measurement-based rating systems and demonstrates the ORC's dedication to fairness and transparency in rating science.

The Sailor Services system is available to anyone after registering with free log-in access at www.orc.org/sailorservices, where instructions are available in English and eight other languages. A Quick Guide for the system is also available on the ORC homepage at www.orc.org.

For designers and those interested in running their own test certificates, the ORC Designer VPP is also now available for purchase and download from the Software tab of the ORC homepage.

"Our technical team has been working hard since the Annual Meeting in November to do the necessary programming, de-bugging and rule writing based on what was approved by the Congress," said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC. "I'm proud they have once again reached their completion target date and have these rules available and ready for use by ORC rating offices, designers and the handicap racing public around the world. We feel confident these rules will further improve the competitiveness, fairness and transparency for all those racing throughout the ORC community, from Sportboats to Superyachts."