Australian Sailing Performance Factors
The PF project provides an online database of elapsed times and time corrected factors (TCF) from Australian keelboat sail racing, with statistical analysis and graphical presentation. Its goals include:
- Time correction factors (TCF) that apply over the entire Australian keelboat racing fleet
- Handicap calculators to support conversion between handicap systems
- Experimentation with alternate ways to evaluate performance
The factors derived include:
- Reference Factor (RF) - A design-centric TCF deterministically calculated from measurement certificates and/or from results against other boats/designs with RFs.
- Performance Factor (PF) - A performance-centric TCF determined by an optimisation process that looks at historical performance.
- Performance Profile (PP) - A value that rates a boats overall performance by combining frequency, diversity, consistency, stability and chaotic tendencies.
The RF and PF are not PHS handicaps. Read more...
Release Notes:
Notice to Handicappers
October 2026
- Series type: Each series now has a forced type — Spin, NS (non-spinnaker), 2H (two-handed), Mixed or Unknown, that can override any (not infrequently) incorrect data from the source data.
- Series/Compare Optimiser: Added an optimiser for allocated handicaps in the calculators on the series and compare pages.
- Duplicate races: A race imported more than once (two series, two clubs, or SailSys and TopYacht) now counts each boat's result once.
- Sliding average fix: The "best k of N" average on the comparison charts dropped the best races instead of the worst; it now drops the worst and weights each finish, so a down-weighted outlier no longer drags the line down.
- Equalise: With several allocated handicap columns, one click scales each to the same average as the ticked column, keeping its ratios.
- Mobile menu: On phones the page menu folds into a ☰ button that opens a full-width list of pages.
- Head to head chart: The elapsed time chart has its own Hide legend box, "From 0" now really zooms in on the races when unticked, and the best fit says which boat is faster and by how much.
- Boat comparison: Boats ticked in the handicap calculator are highlighted in the BCF chart (hover highlighting is paused while any are ticked), and "Common races only" is now a selector: All races, Common races, or Common divisions (only results where the boats raced in the same division, as the head to head chart uses).
- Series Optimise is fairer: It now tilts all handicaps together (each scaled by a power of itself) to level the trend slope, so boats with the same handicap change by the same percentage however many races they sailed, and the order of handicaps is kept.
- Use Best Fit fix: On the comparison pages, Use Best Fit now rebalances just the two boats to the best-fit ratio while keeping their average handicap, instead of resetting both from their PFs.
- Compare Optimise uses the zoom: Optimise on the boat comparison page levels the lines over the period zoomed to on the chart (or the whole chart), judging every boat at the same date; boats with too few results in that period keep their handicap.
August 2026
- This site has switched to an opt-in model for the collection of race data from SailSys. Please send a message if you wish your sailsys data to be included in this analysis.
- Per event Topyacht imports added
July 2026
- Automatic collection of race data from sailsys has been suspended.
June 2026
- removed the fetch handicap feature.
- a new video of using this tool to set the MYC handicaps for the winter series.
May 2026
- Dubious Data: Allow users to flag dubious data.
- Boat's club: Allow multiple clubs to be selected and edited.
- Back Calculated Factor charts: Updated by selected factor set.
- Elapsed Time Comparison: Added to handicap calculator.
- PF Optimizer Invariants: Many improvements to PF optimizer.
- Handicap Calculator Enhancements: Better handling of mixed fleets. More sort and navigation options.
- JSON View: Re-added JSON view of items.
April 2026
- Design Comparison Analysis: New graphical comparison tools for analyzing performance across boat designs.
- Series Performance Tracking: Enhanced series-level metrics with improved dispersion calculations.
March 2026
- Initial Release: Comprehensive Australian keelboat racing performance analysis database with:
- Reference Factor (RF) calculations
- Performance Factor (PF) optimization
- Performance Profile (PP) ratings
- Multi-source data integration (AMS, BWPS, ORC, SailSys, TopYacht)
Known Issues
- Poor measurement certificate analysis
- Unknown unknowns - feedback wanted!!!
Coming Soon
- Rename Reference Factor to Design Factor???
- Improve drill down of single boats finishes.
- Alternate optimisation algorithms