World Leader in Rating Technology Annual Report – ORC Rating Systems (ORC International and ORC Club) November 2015 – Season Activity – from ORC

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ORC Rating Systems: The ORC Rating Systems (ORC International, ORC Club) are managed in 32 countries by National Rating Offices on five continents and centrally managed by ORC for 7 countries where a National Rating Office is not yet established. Thus, in total ORC issues certificates for boats in 39 countries. There are two major developments for ORC this year: surpassing 10,000 combined ORC-issued certificates worldwide and the introduction and use of the new ORC Superyacht Rule. A preliminary tally of fleet statistics is found in Section 7, although these figures are typically under-estimated until year’s end due to regattas starting in the Southern Hemisphere season. Nonetheless, use of ORC Club and ORCi remains strong in most countries despite tough economic times, with a 5% increase from 2014. The countries that have the largest number of ORC certificates include Norway, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Greece and Germany. At the request of the SuperYacht Racing Association (SYRA), ORC this year helped develop and refine the ORC Superyacht Rule (ORCsy), featuring a custom VPP, measurement protocols and scoring methods suited to race these large yachts over 30 m in length. More details on ORCsy are found in Section 2 of this report. Since ORC Rating systems are unique in measuring the stability of offshore yachts, the size and types of boats using ORCi/ORC Club is quite broad, ranging from very small cruisers to the racing SuperYachts. The rule is thus quite versatile, since the VPP can characterize all manner of performance-enhancing features and thus rate them under ORC Rules. These include movable ballast features such as water ballast and canting keels, with all combinations of associated appendages, but also hiking devices as trapezes and straps. In this form and among small keelboats, ORC has a so-called Sportboat Rule for rating dissimilar boats of this type. There are numerous active ORC Sportboat fleets throughout central Europe, and inquiries have been made on use of this rule in other regions of the world. ORC championship events continue to be popular and competitive, with the highest-quality teams emerging on top after a combination of several inshore and offshore races. Individual races are often so close to be resolved only within seconds of corrected time. Inspections and measurement controls are strictly enforced, with a variety of boat types winning these events, with no clear tendency seen in the results that favor any particular type. This year the Barcelona ORC World Championship attracted nearly 100 teams from a record number of 22 countries, the Volvo Estonia ORC European Championship drew a record 66 entries from 8 countries, as did the ORC Sportboat European Championship in Balaton, Hungary with its 27 entries from 8 nations. The continued strong growth and popularity ORC events have thus attracted interest from numerous future ORC continental and World Championship event organizers, and bids have been submitted to host these events through 2018. The accepted bids are as follows: the 2016 ORC World Championship will be hosted by the Royal Danish YC (KDY) in Copenhagen over July 15-23, 2016, and the 2016 ORC European Championship will be hosted by the Nautical Club of Thessaloniki in Porto Carras, Greece over July 4-10, 2016. The 2016 ORC Sportboat European Championship will be held in Chioggia, Italy over May 24-29, and that OSR Cat. 4 requirements will be used as a condition to accept entries.

The 2017 ORC World Championship will be organized by a consortium of clubs to be held in Trieste, Italy, and the 2017 ORC European Championship will be hosted by the Pomeranian Sailing Federation and held in Gdansk, Poland. Details of the 2015 events are found in Section 5 of this report. Use of ORC systems is expanding to new regions and countries, including recent adoption at the largest international big-boat event in the USA, Quantum Key West Race Week, and other races organized by the Storm Trysail Club, with the office at US Sailing’s US Offshore rating office working closely with the ORC technical staff to process online applications made for ORC Club. Growth is seen in use of ORC systems even within established regions for regional races and championships in the Baltic, Mediterranean, and South American regions, with 22 nations within these regions having ORC National Championship events in 2015. Some high-profile classes have committed to switch over to use of ORC for the next season, and these include the 100+ boats in the X-yacht Gold Cup in Denmark and the dozens of entries in the various Swan Cup events organized by the YC Costa Smeralda. Growth in particular fleets is also noted in Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine, and ORC Club is being used for the first time in Australia and the USA. Many of the world’s prominent offshore races and regattas continue to use both ORC Rating systems, which, unlike single-number systems, offer numerous scoring options to race managers through use of the Windowsbased CyAltura and Velum race management and scoring software packages available via the ORC website. ORC’s web-accessed scoring module will allow commercial scoring software vendors, such as Yacht Scoring, to incorporate Performance Curve Scoring as an option, and Swiss Timing’s Manage2Sail system has now been used successfully for scoring in one full season of use at ORC events in Germany. There were also several prominent international races and regattas that use ORC scoring, including the City Clubs Open Regatta (CHN), North Sea Regatta (NED), Copa del Rey (ESP), Kieler Woche (GER), Admiral Yi Sun Sin Regatta (KOR), Aegean Regatta (GRE), Audi Sydney Gold Coast Race (AUS), AF Offshore Race (SWE), Lora Piana Superyacht Cup (ITA), and HH Skagen Race (DEN & NOR). Several Rolex-sponsored events in 2015 used ORC scoring, including Rolex Circuito Atlantico, Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race, Rolex Giraglia Cup, and the Rolex Middle Sea Race. 2.

ORC Superyacht Rule (ORCsy) ORC, in cooperation and under the indications and guidance of SYRA, developed between 2014 and 2015 the project of the ORC SuperYacht Rule. This project includes the collection of all the data available through different designers, sailmakers, builders and manufacturers, of all the information related to all yachts intending to participate and entering effectively the 2015 SuperYacht racing season (stability booklets, offset files, drawings and sailplans, etc.). The ORC selected a dedicated "working team” with the target of analyzing this data, creating a dedicated VPP, and preparing the relevant certificates. The ORCsy team also created a specific scoring software to manage the staggered or pursuit starting procedures and the different wind and sea state conditions. The SuperYacht fleet in the ORCsy database has more than 100 yachts that competed during the 2015 season in 7 events from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean areas, and the ORCsy rule has been successfully utilized in all. During the season the ORCsy VPP has been steadily developed and improved, reaching 48 versions to accommodate the different needs emerging through the different races, yachts variations and natural development. This year there were 107 ORCsy certificates issued, all controlled and issued by the ORC Central Office. A dedicated ORC SuperYacht section has been organized in the ORC web site to give access to the Sailor Service to SuperYacht owners and captains/team managers. The ORCsy team is now fully committed in the

2016 season preparation starting at the end of January in Antigua. 3.

Technical developments & Submissions A hallmark of ORC is that it is an open and accessible system for its users, both through local rating offices and through access to the ORC website. Besides allowing access to all ORC rules, rating system documents and even the VPP used to generate ratings, ORC gives easy access to all available rating and measurement data from a database of over 85,000 records gathered from the past 25 years. The easy access, breadth and depth of this information made available is unique among international rating systems. This access is facilitated by the ORC Sailor Services system, which gives free online access to the ORC database. At this portal is where copies of issued certificates from the past 5 years are available, as well as the ability to run test certificates under the current VPP. This has proven to be a great success among boat owners, sailmakers, project managers and others inquiring about rating changes to their boat, and this past year the system was translated for use in German, Spanish, Greek, French, Croatian, Italian, Portuguese and Brazilian, as well as English. The system has seen expanded growth in use each year since its introduction in 2011, with over 2,000 registered users this year. Through the ORC Sailor Services, a customized Speed Guide package of polar performance data for any ORC-measured boat is available, as well as a Stability and Hydrostatic Datasheet, which is of value to sailors and organizers to assess stability among entries in their offshore races and events. This year a new Target Speed product was also offered in Sailor Services, where a formatted PDF sheet is generated that gives target boat speed and wind angles based on VMG performance on windward-leeward courses. This is in addition to the rating and basic VPP information included on certificates in both ORC International and ORC Club formats. The ORC website has been widely praised for its easy public online access to ORC publications, explanations of the rating systems, scoring methods and measurement, as well as regular news items related to ORC events and a comprehensive online calendar of races and regattas held in countries where ORC certificates are issued worldwide. Traffic on the site grows steadily, and now averages over 30,000 visitors/month. With the increased demand, a new ORC Guidebook will be developed to help local fleets to educate users on topics such as measurement, course types, and scoring options, and when to use them. The International Technical Committee (ITC) had a light research agenda for 2015 yet still met twice this year, first in early March in Southampton in the ISAF Secretariat, and second in Delft over 23-25 October to finalize the changes to be implemented for the 2016 VPP. The group has added a new member this year: Shaun Carkeek from Carkeek Design. The performance of the 2015 VPP was deemed excellent, given the close results among multiple boat types raced in the 2015 Championship events. However, there are some small improvements are made to the VPP recommended by the ITC. These include the following and their related submission reference: - New treatment of fractional mainsail (FIN1+USA1) - New set of downwind coefficients (USA1) - Revised depowering scheme for jibs (POL5+SWE1) Other work performed by ORC to improve the rating system includes: - New set of coefficients for Dacron sails - New limits on Default and declared CW (50% of DSPL) - Revised added resistance in waves - Removal of gyradius correction for boats built between 1989 and 1992

- New default PIPA formulation for ORC CLUB A test run of the >1000 designs in the test fleet indicate very small changes in GPH ratings from 2015: 99% of the fleet changes by