Thusfar 23 teams from 8 countries have entered the 2012 ORC Mediterranean Championship to be held over 10-16 June,
with more expected in the remaining two weeks before the start of competition in Cres, Croatia. Featuring inshore-only racing at the same venue as last year's record-breaking ORC World Championship, organizers from the Sailing Club of Rijeka (SCOR) say this year's event will have several improvements over last year.
"We have a new Race Committee team for this year led by Denis Marinov, IRO," said Zoran Grubisa, organizer from SCOR, "and daily video highlights produced by Icarus Sailing Media. We will also have an online tracking system we are testing for use during SCOR's Thousand Islands Race in September."
Another innovation being used for the first time in ORC regattas is a web-based online scoring system developed by Yacht Scoring in the US that will give corrected time results calculated using Performance Curve Scoring (PCS). These results will be uploaded to the internet for the public as well as competitors to see as the RC scoring team inputs the elapsed times as boats finish each race.
"This is an important innovation in PCS scoring," says Grubisa, "since until now results had to be calculated then generated in pdf form before posting on the web. This system will make the results accessible in close to real-time, something that the simplified scoring systems have been using but until now not possible in PCS."
Among the favored teams coming to the event is Richard Vojta's GS42R Bohemia Express from the Czech Republic. Over the past several years Vojta and his international team have been both active and successful in several ORC championship events in the region, the last being a Silver medal performance at the 2011 ORCi World Championship. Vojta and his team will have another busy summer this year: besides racing the Mediterranean Championship here in Cres, he will transport his boat to the Baltic for August's 2012 Audi ORCi World Championship regatta in Helsinki.
The shoreside venue will once again be at the spacious ACI Marina, and nine races are planned for the event.
For more information and to enter the 2012 ORC Mediterranean Championship, visit www.scor.hr/regate/2012e/orcmc.htm.
For more information on the Thousand Islands Race, visit www.scor.hr/regate/2012e/tir.htm.