PCYC Statement on FTCF Scoring

As we do with any major change, the Pacific Cup Yacht Club is reviewing the scoring system used for our ORR Fleet in the 2026 race. This review will not change the 2026 race scoring or results.

In any change to a ratings system, some boats will benefit and others will not. The goal, of course, is to deliver a system that gives – and is perceived to give – each boat an equal chance to win.

Pac Cup adopted ORR’s Forecast-Time Correction Factor (F-TCF) rating system for several reasons. The strongest was to reduce the “winning start day” factor in which the boats starting in less favorable weather were all but shut out of the overall win. Another factor was recognition that the prior “wind matrix” system presumed, obviously incorrectly, that every boat sailed in the exact same wind conditions. Finally, the F-TCF system provides a much more fine-grained analysis of boat performance, eliminating a few ratings anomalies that had plagued the old system.

For the 2026 race, Pac Cup joined the Transpac and Newport Bermuda races in adopting the F-TCF system.  We were aware of implementation issues those races had, and took steps to avoid them, including modification of the weather files selection and providing an audit team to assure that the system was executed as planned.

Under the F-TCF system, as compared to the wind matrix single number rating system used in previous races, most boats had modest changes to their ratings. Some had significant changes. A group from the Pacific Cup Technical Committee is working with US Sailing’s Offshore Office to review these results. The big questions are whether the F-TCF system produced justified and appropriate ratings under the circumstances and what should be done for future races.

The review includes analyzing the race under a variety of other assumptions, scoring systems, and weather data files to help understand whether the results were weird anomalies or appropriate corrections. Whatever is discovered and decided, it’s important, of course, that the results be shared and discussed so that racers can be confident that their efforts and expenditures will produce a fair outcome for all boats.