At this year’s ORC Sportboat European Championship hosted in Istanbul, Turkey, there were 27 entries that raced together while being scored both overall and in two separate classes that define ORC Sportboat Class A and Class B. Saruhan Cinay skippering his Turkish team on HSSK’s J/70 NIMBUS scored 21.0 points in six races to be on top of a very competitive 15-boat Class A, only 1.5 points ahead of Levent Peynirci’s J/70 CHEESE SAILING. Besides skipper Cinay, the NIMBUS team included Canbert Mete, Deniz Topal, Sevan Habes and Nayra Dursun. In addition to sweeping ORC Class A, the two J/70s also won the ORC Sportboat European Championship Overall, NIMBUS taking the Gold Medal and CHEESE SAILING the Silver Medal. The strong turnout of local teams along with interest from outside Turkey indicates continued significant growth potential in the ORC Sportboat class. To be defined as an ORC Sportboat, the boat must be between 6.00 – 9.15 m in length, be no more that 2000 kg in weight, and have a displacement/length ratio of <6.00. As seen in Istanbul, well-sailed popular one-designs may race competitively using the ORC Sportboat rules, and the corrected time results show this: after nearly an hour of sailing, many top ten race results were often decided by only seconds in corrected time. This was one of the best-attended championship events thus far in this class, with talk already of new host locations next year. For more ORC Sportsboat European Championship information, visit http://www.orcsportsboateuropeans2021.com/.