
Freshly launched FIRST 36 SE shines at her maiden race: 2025 ORC double-handed world championship
Even though this was more of a discovery race, where her naval designer, Samuel Manuard and known First SE community weather guru Jure Jerman had the goal of feeling her for the first time and identifying strengths and weaknesses, she surprised the team and competitors with her pace.
The race proved to be a 165-mile long windward / leeward course, which naturally wouldn’t suit 36SE. But even from the blocks she showed amazing VMG speeds, finishing in 3rd place, mere 1 minute behind the 2nd, in an extremely competitive fleet of 29 boats from the ORC group Class B.
Crew Members Insights
It was a wonderful race. Our main goal was to learn more about the boat and her behaviour. This is only the beginning, but I’m really pleased with the First 36 SE’s dynamic and speed. We started strong, had a great pace, and some very good moments in light winds. However, when the wind shifted in the middle of the night off Istria, it took us too much time to come up with proper trim. This happens when you are not used to the boat; t is difficult to know the target speed. For instance, we now know that her VMG target speeds in 12kt of wind are around 7.2–7.4 knots.

With the conditions we saw, light wind suited her well. She is good at reaching—we had a short reach where we were immediately up to speed, while for VMG, you really have to fight hard. The feeling is very pleasant on board, but there is a lot to be improved, obviously; now we were only scratching the surface. Performance depends significantly on sail configuration and the transitions you make during the race. Unfortunately, we missed one transition, and the first two boats pulled away for a couple of miles. After that, with strong crews in front and fairly steady wind all the way to the finish, it was nearly impossible to catch up.

I’m not a professional sailor, and this fleet was full of very serious racers. In sport, success usually comes with investment, like training. With the investment we put in here, I think we did well. Sam arrived in Monfalcone on Monday, and the training on Tuesday was too calm to do much.
In racing, you’re always making guesses, and when one goes wrong, it’s hard to recover—we couldn’t catch up anymore. But I learned so much during these two days. If we were to do it again, we’d be much more confident in how to work with the boat. Speaking of the FIRST 36 SE, she was extremely competitive in all kinds of conditions, and my feeling was that we were losing mainly due to our mistakes – so she really deserves all the credit for being fast all around I am really impressed, so congratulations to the design and production team.
Jure JERMAN, First SE community member and coskipper

Published on 07.10.2025