RORC Caribbean 600 2026

English Harbor, Antigua — 23 February 2026

Caribbean IRC offshore classic 600 nm island circuit
55 boats in the fleet 3 editions covered 16 countries 600 nm International event fleet · as of 2026-09-02
Kinship

An Atlantic-to-Caribbean offshore campaign.

17 of the fleet’s 55 boats also raced the 2025 Fastnet — the long-haul offshore programs that thread the Atlantic, the Solent, and the 11-island Antigua loop into one winter.

 Hidden Shape

AEROSTREAM leads at 29.1%.
The blue-water offshore signature on a 600 nm tropical loop.

16 towering, rig-powered platforms among the 54 classified boats; AEROFORCE follows at 27.3%, and AEROCORE completes the front tier, level with it at 27.3% across its two measured slots.
Character

Eleven islands, six hundred miles, a trade-wind blue-water classic.

The RORC Caribbean 600 is 600 nautical miles around the volcanic Caribbean island chain from English Harbor, Antigua, where trade winds, squalls, and dramatic island wind shadows make a different race every fifty miles. The course rewards hull efficiency on the open-water tradewind legs, crew execution through the physically demanding island roundings, and tactical intelligence in the squall and katabatic-wind game that defines the passages between islands. The Guadeloupe wind shadow downwind of La Soufrière is the race's tactical crucible; the night passages off the volcanic slopes are a second one. FleetEdge tracks 55 boats across three editions admitted to the fleet — the 2024, 2025, and 2026 editions are populated in the analytic record, with the most recent 2026 edition fielding 25 of those 55 boats on the start line in February 2026.

The fleet runs AEROSTREAM-led at 29.1% (16 boats), with AEROFORCE second at 27.3% (15 boats) and AEROCORE level with it at 27.3% (15 boats) across its two measured slots — a blue-water offshore signature. AEROSTREAM is the towering, rig-powered family: a level posture carried on a stiff righting reserve, strongest upwind and moderate on the reach. AEROFORCE is the second large-platform word in the front tier, level in posture on a neutral righting reserve. AEROCORE is large as well, carried on a tender reserve, and downwind-neutral in race results — under the 2026 census one word covers two measured slots here, 14.5% (8 boats) and 12.7% (7 boats), each slot keeping its own measured signature. Together those three words account for 83.6% of the 55-boat fleet — a front tier built on scale, which is what a fleet assembled for 600 nm of open-water trade-wind passage-making tends to look like. LEANRUN carries 7.3% (4 boats) across its two slots, and LEANFORCE at 5.5% (3 boats) and HEFTLINE at 1.8% (1 boat) close the eight populated measured slots. One boat lacks enough certificate fields for classification. Sixteen countries are represented across the 55-boat fleet, led by GBR (14), USA (8), and FRA (6).

The Caribbean 600 is also an Atlantic-Caribbean campaign — 17 of the fleet's 55 boats (30.9%) also raced the 2025 Fastnet. The overlap is structural, not coincidental: programs that target the long winter offshore in the Caribbean often thread the Solent in summer on the same boat and the same crew. Farr Design anchors the fleet at 20.0%, ahead of Rod Johnstone (J/Boats) at 7 (12.7%), Reichel/Pugh and Judel-Vrolijk at 4 apiece (7.3%), and Frers and Ker at 3 each. Farr's lead is the clearest single-board signal in the fleet, but it still sits inside a wide designer mix — and the next edition in February 2027 runs the same 11-island course under whatever trade-wind regime the Atlantic delivers on the day.

Event cohort view · 25 boats · as of 2026-09-02

Selected Race Result

RORC Caribbean 600 2026 — 600 nm round the volcanic Caribbean chain.

25 of the 55 fleet boats raced the 2026 edition on 23 February 2026 across 10 countries on one race — an offshore-island-circuit course scored under IRC in divisions from Super Zero down to Two, with comparative-allowance data on the boats that reached FleetEdge’s comparative-data threshold.

Headlines

Dimension leaders — RORC Caribbean 600 2026 (23 February 2026).

Leaders from the published 2026 edition data. Comparative Time — the allowance delta in sec/nm against the fleet’s ORC median — reads negative = faster than the rating expects; Crew Residual — the sec/nm gap between a boat’s actual pace and its archetype-expected pace — reads negative = the crew beat that baseline. The Comparative Time board ranks most-negative first; no Crew Residual row is published for the fleet’s 2026 starters at the current view.

Allowance — sec/nm vs ORC

1. SCOWLING DRAGON · −69.92
2. RIKKI · −65.15
3. BLACK JACK 100 · −55.54

Sail Drive Index

1. MORPHEUS · 24
2. JACKKNIFE · 22
3. HEART OF GOLD · 20

Upwind VMG — 12 kt, kn

1. BLACK JACK 100 · 8.84
2. MONSTER PROJECT · 8.74
3. AEGIR · 7.32

Downwind VMG — 12 kt, kn

1. BLACK JACK 100 · 11.55
2. AEGIR · 8.58
3. INO NOIR · 7.98

Rated Pace — sec/nm

1. BLACK JACK 100 · 325.2
2. MONSTER PROJECT · 394.7
3. INO NOIR · 471.7

Crew Residual — sec/nm

No crew residual is published for the fleet’s 2026 starters at the current view. The full execution decomposition for each boat is private to its team in the Team Diagnostic.

Stories

What the Caribbean 600 2026 fleet surfaced.

Championship Citation

RIKKI — IRC One Winner, RORC Caribbean 600 2026

RIKKI (RP-42, Reichel/Pugh, NZL) took 1st in IRC One in the 2026 RORC Caribbean 600 — a class rank in the event’s single scored race, read from the published result. The win is platform-consistent rather than platform-defying: the AEROSTREAM 42-footer also posted the second-deepest allowance delta in the fleet’s comparative field at −65.15 sec/nm against the ORC median, 22.9 sec/nm faster than that field’s median of −42.21, and sits 5th on the fleet’s Downwind VMG-12kt board at 7.59 kn. It was not the fleet’s only class win at this running: BELLADONNA (Grand Soleil 46 BC, Botin & Carkeek, GBR) took 1st in IRC Two in the same race, and INO NOIR (Ker-46, GBR) placed 2nd in IRC Zero — two class wins among the fleet’s 25 starters, with the physics boards agreeing on the first of them.

  • IRC One: 1st · published 2026 result, single race
  • Allowance: −65.15 sec/nm · 2nd on the board
  • IRC Two: BELLADONNA 1st · IRC Zero: INO NOIR 2nd
Partial data RORC Caribbean 600 2026
Multi-Dimension Presence

BLACK JACK 100 stacks rated pace and both VMG-12kt boards.

BLACK JACK 100 (Super Maxi 100, Reichel/Pugh, AEROSTREAM) tops three Caribbean 600 fleet Headlines at once — Upwind VMG-12kt at 8.84 kn, Downwind VMG-12kt at 11.55 kn (2.97 kn clear of AEGIR), and the fleet’s fastest rated pace at 325.2 sec/nm. The 100-foot Super Maxi is the only boat in the 2026 fleet to lead three separate dimension families across the same race, and it carries that presence onto the comparative board as well — 3rd of 11 on the allowance delta at −55.54 sec/nm; no crew residual is published for the fleet’s starters at the current view. On a running where the open-water trade-wind legs asked for sustained drive and the island-cluster sections asked for height, the AEROSTREAM Super Maxi turned length and rig power into a leading dimensional position on both points of sail.

  • Upwind / Downwind VMG-12kt: 8.84 / 11.55 kn · fleet-leading on both
  • Rated pace: 325.2 sec/nm · fastest of 24
  • Allowance: −55.54 sec/nm · 3rd on the board
Complete data RORC Caribbean 600 2026
Magnitude Gap

SCOWLING DRAGON runs 27.7 sec/nm faster than the comparative median.

SCOWLING DRAGON (Class 40, Owen Clarke design, USA) led the 2026 comparative-allowance field at −69.92 sec/nm vs the ORC median — 4.8 sec/nm clear of RIKKI (RP-42, Reichel/Pugh) at −65.15 and 27.7 sec/nm faster than the comparative field’s median of −42.21. The 40-foot offshore one-design out-sailed its allowance harder than the maxis behind it — BLACK JACK 100 took 3rd on the board at −55.54 — the signature of a planing-capable shorthanded platform in the sustained open-water reaching that the Antigua loop served up at this running. Over 600 nm, a 27.7 sec/nm edge over the median compounds to better than four and a half hours of corrected time.

  • 1st: SCOWLING DRAGON · −69.92 sec/nm
  • 2nd: RIKKI · −65.15 sec/nm · 4.8 sec/nm gap
  • Comparative-field median: −42.21 sec/nm
Partial data RORC Caribbean 600 2026
Composition Shift

The LEANRUN concentration in the 2026 race field.

The 2026 running redraws the archetype mix below the fleet’s front tier: where the 55-boat fleet baseline runs AEROSTREAM-led at 29.1% with AEROFORCE second at 27.3% and AEROCORE level with it at 27.3% across its two measured slots, the 11 of 25 starters carrying an archetype assignment at the view published nearest the race read AEROSTREAM 4, AEROFORCE 3, and two apiece for AEROCORE and LEANRUN. The two populations read on their own scopes — the baseline is the full three-edition fleet under the current published view, while the event slice covers only the classified part of one starting list — but the leader holds across both, AEROSTREAM reading 36.4% of the classified starters against its 29.1% fleet share, and the sharpest concentration belongs to LEANRUN: 18.2% of the race field against 7.3% of the fleet, more than ten points of gain. The 2026 starting list still reads as a subset of the broader fleet because that fleet IS the Caribbean 600, edition by edition — the 2024 edition fielded 19 boats, 2025 fielded 23, and 2026 fielded 25.

  • Fleet baseline (55 boats, current view): AEROSTREAM 29.1% · AEROFORCE 27.3% · AEROCORE 27.3%
  • 2026 race field (11 classified at the race-nearest view): AEROSTREAM 4 · AEROFORCE 3 · AEROCORE and LEANRUN close the set at 2 each
  • Editions populated: 2024 (19) · 2025 (23) · 2026 (25)
Partial data Race group vs fleet
Race Archetypes

11 boats classified in RORC Caribbean 600 2026.

Archetype assignments dated 2026-08-28 — the FleetEdge analysis nearest this event.

25 fleet boats started the 2026 edition; 11 of them carry a FleetEdge archetype assignment at the view published nearest the race — a smaller classified population than the current Fleet DNA baseline, so the two surfaces are read separately. AEROSTREAM leads at 36.4%, AEROFORCE takes 27.3%, and AEROCORE and LEANRUN close the classified set at 18.2% (2 boats) each.

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

Boats 4
Share 36.4%

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — measured reaching advantage in race results.

Boats 3
Share 27.3%

AEROCORE

Large scale · tender reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

Boats 2
Share 18.2%

LEANRUN

— upwind-neutral in race results.

Boats 2
Share 18.2%

International event fleet · 55 boats · as of 2026-09-02

Fleet DNA

How the Caribbean 600 fleet is built.

55 boats in the fleet. 28 ORC-rated and 27 mapped IRC entries attributed across 6 archetypes — 54 classified, the remainder lacking enough certificate fields for classification. The full classified archetype distribution, sorted by count.

The 8-archetype distribution.

AEROSTREAM

Towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

neutral upwind · weak reaching · weak downwind

Boats 16
Share 29.1%
  • TP-52
  • XP-44
  • Farr 40

AEROFORCE

Large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — measured reaching advantage in race results.

weak upwind · weak reaching · weak downwind

Boats 15
Share 27.3%

AEROCORE

Large scale · tender reserve — downwind-neutral in race results.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 15
Share 27.3%

LEANRUN

— upwind-neutral in race results.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · weak downwind

Boats 4
Share 7.3%
  • First 36.7
  • J-109
  • First 35

LEANFORCE

Compact scale — measured downwind advantage in race results.

neutral upwind · neutral reaching · neutral downwind

Boats 3
Share 5.5%
  • Fortuna 9
  • Mat 10.10
  • Aphrodite 101

HEFTLINE

Compact scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured upwind advantage in race results.

moderate upwind · moderate reaching · moderate downwind

Boats 1
Share 1.8%
  • J-111
  • Farr 30
  • Cape 31

AEROSTREAM leads the fleet at 29.1% — the towering, rig-powered family that carries a level posture on a stiff righting reserve and is strongest upwind. AEROFORCE is second at 27.3%, level in posture on a neutral righting reserve. AEROCORE is level with it at 27.3%, carried across two measured slots at 14.5% and 12.7% — large platforms on a tender reserve, downwind-neutral in race results; under the 2026 census one word covers both slots, each keeping its own measured signature. Together those three words account for 83.6% of the 55-boat fleet — a front tier defined by scale rather than by any one point of sail, which is what a three-edition entry list for a 600-mile trade-wind circuit tends to assemble. LEANRUN carries 7.3% across its two slots, and LEANFORCE at 5.5% and HEFTLINE at 1.8% close the distribution.

At a glance

Caribbean 600 — structural profile.

Scope
55 boats
28 ORC-rated · 27 mapped-IRC
Top 3 archetypes
  1. AEROSTREAM — 16 boats (29.1%)
  2. AEROCORE — 15 boats (27.3%)
  3. AEROFORCE — 15 boats (27.3%)
Eight canonical performance archetypes (the fleet’s eight recurring design types) cluster the fleet by dimensional signature. See the full map →
Top designer cluster
Farr Design
11 boats (20.0%) — the most-represented design voice in this fleet.

Counts and archetype assignments above are measured from the current corpus. Commentary below is interpretive.

International event fleet · as of 2026-09-02

Classified fleet view · 54 of 55 classified · as of 2026-09-02

Fleet Stories

Caribbean 600 fleet signature.

Designer Density

Farr Design anchors the Caribbean 600 fleet.

Farr Design drew 11 of the 55 fleet boats (20.0%) at the RORC Caribbean 600 — the leading designer share in the fleet, ahead of Rod Johnstone (J/Boats) at 12.7% and Reichel/Pugh and Judel-Vrolijk at 4 apiece (7.3%). Frers and Ker sit close behind, with Humphreys, Jeppesen-Nielsen and Valer on 2, and a long tail of 16 single-board entries from Verdier, Owen Clarke, Botin & Carkeek, Juan Yacht Design, Finot-Conq and others. At 20.0% the Farr drawing-board clears the threshold where one designer visibly leads a fleet — roughly one boat in five on the 600 nm island circuit is a Farr line, and the remaining four-fifths are spread across more than 20 other boards. The Caribbean 600 is a Farr-led fleet with a wide bench.

  • Farr Design: 20.0%
  • Rod Johnstone (J/Boats): 12.7%
  • Reichel/Pugh & Judel-Vrolijk: 7.3% each
Complete data FleetEdge fleet-wide data
Archetype Density

A scale-led front tier — AEROSTREAM 16, AEROFORCE 15, AEROCORE 15.

AEROSTREAM carries 29.1% of the Caribbean 600 fleet (16 boats), ahead of AEROFORCE at 27.3% (15 boats) and AEROCORE level with it at 27.3% (15 boats) — three Large-Platform words that between them account for 46 of the fleet’s boats. This is a fleet with a tightly packed front tier: AEROSTREAM leads the second word by a single hull, and the second and third words sit level at 15 hulls apiece. All three sit in the Large-Platform family, and the difference is in how the platform is carried — AEROSTREAM is the towering one, level in posture on a stiff righting reserve; AEROFORCE is large and level on a neutral reserve; AEROCORE is large and upright on a tender reserve. In race results the split follows that carriage: AEROSTREAM and AEROCORE are both downwind-neutral — in line with the fleet norm on that leg — while AEROFORCE carries a measured reaching advantage, a stronger showing than the fleet norm on the reach. What the front of this fleet expresses is a preference for scale; specialization happens below the three lead words rather than at the top of the distribution. LEANRUN at 7.3% (4 boats), LEANFORCE at 5.5% (3 boats) and HEFTLINE at 1.8% (1 boat) close the classified set, with one boat short of the certificate fields to classify.

  • AEROSTREAM: 16 boats · 29.1%
  • AEROCORE: 15 boats · 27.3%
  • Front three words = 83.6% of the fleet
Complete data FleetEdge fleet-wide data
Continue

Go deeper.

IRC Racing

All six IRC offshore classics in one analytical framework — the Caribbean 600 is one of the five flagship races with full HYCOM ocean-current treatment.

ORC World Fleet

The cross-fleet ORC reference for archetype, designer, and class signature — the dictionary against which the Caribbean 600’s 29.1% AEROSTREAM share reads.

RORC Transatlantic

3,000 nautical miles from Lanzarote to the Caribbean — the Atlantic feeder route that delivers programs to the Caribbean offshore winter.

Fastnet

The 695 nm Solent-to-Fastnet-Rock loop — 17 of the Caribbean 600 fleet’s boats also raced the 2025 Fastnet, the largest overlap with any other single race in the fleet’s analytic record.

Middle Sea Race

The 606 nm Maltese loop — the third member of the IRC offshore long-mile triangle alongside the Caribbean 600 and the Fastnet.

Fleet Archetypes

The archetype design groups of the 2026 census that let us read the Caribbean 600’s structural signature — what AEROSTREAM and AEROCORE are and why the 600 nm Antigua loop puts scale at the front.

Analyze the Caribbean 600.

600 nm around 11 islands. Trade winds, squalls, and volcanic wind shadows.

Explore FleetEdge Explore All Countries