VPPs are used by yacht designers, boat builders, model testers, sailors, sailmakers, also America's Cup teams, to predict the performance of a sailboat before it has been built or prior to major modifications.
The first VPP was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the early 1970s when Commodore H. Irving Pratt funded research to predict the performance "of a sailing yacht, given knowledge of its hull, rig and sailplan geometry".
VPPs are iterative programs which require educated guesses of initial parameters to begin operating.
The resistive forces acting on a hull and its appendages (keel, rudder and other fins) can be broken down into a number of smaller components.
[1] While most other rules do not take past performance into account, PHRF differentiates itself by allowing skippers to request handicap reductions after a series of poor racing results.