Self-preservation in action?

These have been challenging times for the ORC rating system due to an anomaly in their Velocity Prediction Program, which is the basis for which they seek to fairly handicap dissimilar boats. The focus of this hiccup has been the XR-41 (above, #26)), launched in 2025, that won the 2025 ORC World Championship.

What happened? Yacht designers have been looking for weak points in rules since the beginning of time, and the XR-41 found one. While ORC hurriedly seeks to fix their VPP for all boats in 2026, they did some math and issued the XR-41 with a 10 seconds per mile penalty.

For a rating system that prides itself on openness and measurement-based solutions, the ORC correction can feel like the kind of observed assessment more common in PHRF. Can ORC have it both ways? Are designers not supposed to do their job? Or is this self-preservation in action? The organization issued this statement on December 8, 2025: click here