This improved program is designed to eliminate the problems that led to IMS falling out of favour with yacht clubs in the early 2000s.
IMS is (as of 2008) gaining support among the premium ocean racing clubs around the world[1][2] as it is an open system, where all the details of the handicapping formula are available to designers and boat owners.
This allows a greater degree of certainty when designing boats than closed, secret formulas such as IRC allow for.
The ORC-International rule (ORCi) is the full complexity, highly developed version for top level championship racing.
An ORC-Club rule has also been developed, which is a simplified version more easily used by smaller clubs who have less resources.