Round the Island Race

The field FleetEdge holds for the 2026 race splits into two populations. The larger is IRC-only: production hulls rated under IRC and mapped into FleetEdge’s comparable ORC-based physics view, carrying class ranks and certificate-side velocity potentials but no place in the event-vintage archetype view (the archetype view nearest the race day covers the ORC-measured boats). The smaller is the ORC-measured field — boats holding an ORC International or ORC Club certificate — and it is this population that the archetype view classifies. Read the two together and the shape of the entry is clear: a Solent production fleet in depth, with a measured, campaigning tier at the top of the classes.

Among the ORC-measured boats AEROSTREAM shares the lead with AEROFORCE — towering scale · level posture · stiff reserve — measured downwind advantage in banked race evidence. It is the word the big IRC 0 platforms read: the TP-52, the Ker 46, the Landmark 43. LEANRUN follows — large scale · upright posture — downwind-neutral in banked race evidence — and it is the word of the Solent’s campaigning production hulls, the J-112 that took IRC 1 among them. AEROFORCE, the other half of the lead, reads large scale · level posture · neutral reserve — reaching-constrained in banked race evidence. Behind the leading trio the field thins to pairs and singles: AEROCORE and HEFTLINE, then KEELRUN, SPARKFLEX and LEANFORCE at one apiece — the compact and minimal-scale end of the measured field.

What that shape means for reading the race. The physics-side boards on the Racing tab rank the measured field only, so they lean toward the large-platform words that hold the fastest certificates. The class results rank everyone, and on the day the four classes went to a J-112, a First 34.7, a GP-42 and an If — mid-size and small boats as much as big ones. The archetype view describes the platform each measured boat is; the standings describe what the day did with it. Both are on this page, and neither is offered as the cause of the other.

The class list is the Solent’s production IRC ladder. Beneteau’s First 34.7 and First 36.7 are the two most common classes in the field FleetEdge holds for this race, with the First 40 and First 40.7 behind them — four Farr-drawn Firsts at the heart of the entry. The J-Boats line follows: J-109 and J-105 in numbers, with the J-112, J-99, J-120 and J-122 in ones and twos. The Maxi 999 fills the small-boat end of IRC 3 alongside the If, the Avance 24, the Cumulus and the Fortuna 9; the Grand Soleil 37, Dufour 34 and XP-44 sit through the middle classes; and IRC 0 gathers the campaigning tier — the GP-42, the TP-52, the Ker 46 and a Class 40 pair.

The designer picture is Farr Yacht Design first. The First-series lineage — the 34.7, 36.7, 40 and 40.7 — plus the GP-42 that took IRC 0 make Farr the most-represented drawing board in the field by a distance. Rod Johnstone’s J-Boats are the clear second voice, and a J-112 and a J-109 finished first and second in IRC 1. Behind those two the field is broad: Pelle Petterson’s Maxi 999s, Niels Jeppesen’s X-Yachts, Botin and Carkeek grand-prix hulls, and a scatter of French, Italian and Scandinavian boards — the mixed drawing-board picture of a large handicap fleet rather than a one-design circuit.