How good are these forecasts?
Every forecast scored on seasons the model never saw while its settings were chosen.
Match racing is two boats at a time, but the events are round robins and knockouts. The model rates each skipper on their final placing at every Tour stage (a Plackett–Luce model of the finishing order), so a stage's odds are the chance of winning the whole event.
Only the World Match Racing Tour's own stages count, season by season as the Tour's calendar lists them: World Championship and World Tour events alike, the USA Grand Slam events among them in the seasons they were on it. National championships, club and college events, and youth and women's events are left out.
A skipper's crew changes from event to event and isn't in the model.
Boats differ by venue (the host club supplies them); the model doesn't know one-design classes apart.
The Tour's season points and World Championship standings aren't simulated yet.
Questions and answers
How accurate are PodiumOracle's World Match Racing Tour predictions?
On 38 events from held-back seasons (2024 to 2026), which the model never saw while it was tuned, its favourite won 37% of the time in fields of about 11, and it gave the eventual winner 20% on average. Its log loss was 1.804, against 2.337 for treating every skipper as equal and 2.069 for recent form.