Victor Wild
New York Yacht Club Herreschoff Award
November 16th, 2024
On Saturday, November 16th, Victor Wild was honored with the New York Yacht Club's prestigious Herreshoff Award, the organization's highest accolade. Established in 1957, the Herreshoff Award recognizes individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the sport of sailing in the United States.
The Herreshoff Award, presented by the N.G. Herreshoff Fund, is awarded annually for the best season of racing in the New York Yacht Club's most competitive class. Victor Wild earned this prestigious honor following an outstanding season, highlighted by his remarkable victory at the 2024 ORC World Championship, hosted by the New York Yacht Club, and his success in other high-profile TP52 class events. His exceptional performance represents the spirit of excellence and competition that the award seeks to celebrate.
ORC Worlds 2024
1st Place
Article from SailingWorld.com
ORC World Champions Crowned After Long Series
After a week of distance and buoy races, the ORC World Championship capped a perfect series in Newport, Rhode Island.
By Dobbs Davis
October 7, 2024
The new 2024 ORC Class 0 World Champions are those that raced on Victor Wild’s TP 52 Fox 2.0. This team dominated this new class—first introduced to the ORC Championships this year—by winning five of seven races, enough to build an insurmountable 9-point lead overall. The silver medal position went to Peter Askew’s Botin 52 Wizard, and bronze to Andrew Berdon’s TP52 Summer Storm.
The Fox 2.0 team included Andy Horton, Harry West, Chris Hosking, Cooper Dressler, Dean Curtis, Graham Post, Jareese Finch, Kelvin Harrap, Maciel Cicchetti, Ignacio Postigo, Orrin Starr, Santiago Lange, Scott Nixon, Aidan Naughton and Lucas Chapman.
“This is Victor’s third TP52,” said Horton, tactician for Fox 2.0. “This boat was specifically built for the ORC Worlds in 2020, then Covid happened, yet we’ve always kept this regatta on the long-term planning and just slowly chipped away at the details that we’d need during this event. The right crew members, and the guys working on the boat have been endlessly trying to improve it.
“This includes things like the sails, which were sized for this regatta, and the different types of sails, like some specialty reaching sails we’ve been developing for two years. The boat mods and doing all of these other regattas were training with this bigger picture in mind, to come to the ORC worlds and do well.”
Yet things were not always easy nor perfect for Fox, such as during the first race of the event, the Long Offshore Race.[ORC World Championship]
Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Interlodge goes upwind during the buoy-racing portion of the ORC World Championship. Paul Todd/Outside Images
“We didn’t have the greatest start, and we were chasing all the other boats down,” Horton said. “And then on the big long run one of our halyards slipped and the wind instruments got chucked, so all of a sudden we were blind going into the night. Our sails were too flat for the breeze: we expected it to be windier, so we had our heavy-air main and a J2 that were the only upwind sails on the boat to keep the boat light. So, I knew for about 10 hours that we were gonna have a tough night.
“And you know, the guys sailed the pants off the boat. I mean, it was amazing to see everyone work so hard without wind gear. All night long, we challenged. We got back up to the front, and it got really light, and we fell back, and then we fought all the way to the finish and picked up a couple boats on the last 30-mile beat and ended up second. This was an outstanding effort by this team.”
FOX Awards