Records tumble in the Antigua 360
by International Maxi Association 20 Feb 17:08 PST
20 February 2026
The IMA Maxi fleet sets sail on the RORC Antigua 360 © Arthur Daniel / RORC
To break records on modern day sail boats requires a fine balance between strong wind and flat water as too much of the former creates too large a seaway limiting top speed. Fortunately today's 18-20 knot easterly created the perfect compromise for the Royal Ocean Racing Club's annual anticlockwise lap of Antigua, causing both monohull and multihull records to fall.
Following the smaller IRC classes, the multihulls set sail at 1000 from beneath Fort Charlotte with the two favourites being the heavily turboed MOD70 trimaran sisterships Jason Carroll's Argo and Erik Maris' Zoulou, on this occasion chartered to Jon Desmond's Final Final team.
Argo was the record holder having set a time of 3 hours 14 minutes 23 seconds in 2023 but today her crew reduced this to 2 hours 29 minutes 20 seconds or by a whopping 25%.
"The boat's as fast as it's ever been," commented Carroll. "We saw 34 knots, but my eyes weren't glued to it [the speedo] - you've got to look out at the water not just at the instruments. A good fun experience, and my son came with us today, which was the first time for him." The Argo crew comprised Carroll and his son, Brian Thompson, Chad Corning, Sam Goodchild, Charlie Ogletree, Westy Barlow, Pete Cumming, James Dodd and Alister Richardson.
Multihull veteran Brian Thompson said a key choice had been to sail with a reef and J1, whereas Final Final-Zoulou and Sophia (the Irens 63 trimaran ex-Paradox) flew J2s. "Often it's less drag so we're quicker with a reef. But we managed to keep up our J1, our big jib, for the upwinds and it was nice reaching, too.
"We had 18-19 knots all the way up to Green Island with quite reasonable seas, making the tacks tricky - you had to wait for a gap in the waves. Zoulou got ahead of us briefly. They ducked us at the start. We went into the cliffs and tacked in front of them, but got caught in irons while they just scooted through and were ahead for about 10 minutes." While the two boats have identical performance, it was only the second day out for the Final Final team on their new steed. Half way around Argo had extended her lead to 3.5 miles which they held to the finish, not only setting a new record but winning the Multihull class too ahead of Sophia and Final Final-Zoulou.
"We went round yesterday for practise which was really helpful," Thompson continued. "A tiny bit more could be knocked off by a MOD, but not much. But by an Ultim..."
Fortunately the Argo have exactly just such a new giant trimaran currently on the drawing board although some years away from launch.
Seven maxis competed in the IRC fleet - the five from the Nelson's Cup Series that concluded yesterday, plus Remon Vos' Black Jack 100 and Alex Laing's Tony Rey-skippered Team Jajo. While there were high expectations for Black Jack 100 as the highest rating under IRC, she was less race-fit than the Nelson's Cup competitors but this led to a tight finish. Joost and Laura Schuijff's Leopard 3 was first home ahead of Chris Flowers' Galateia and Karel Komárek's V - this trio separated by just 35 seconds after more than 3.5 hours of racing, with Black Jack 100 arriving a minute and a half later.
For the Schuijffs and their Leopard 3 crew, line honours and the record was cream on the cake after winning the IMA Maxi class at the RORC Nelson's Cup yesterday. Her time of 3 hours 32 minutes 58 seconds was well within the previous monohull race record of 4 hours 1 minute 42 seconds, set by Niklas Zennström's Rán in 2023 and also beat the outright monohull record of 3 hours 46 minutes 8 seconds established by the 236ft Hetairos in the 2022 Round Antigua Race.
"It was just amazing how close we were the whole way," commented Leopard 3 tactician Chris Nicholson. "We had a really nice start and beat and we had pulled out a good lead but then we had an issue with the jib top going across the top which dropped us back to fourth. We just decided to run the jib top in its low mode and then one of the fuses, that we use to hoist the sail, didn't blow... which was expensive.
"We were close behind V and then we just played a few shifts halfway up the beat from the end of the island and ran a bit of risk there, splitting away offshore. And at one stage we were going to cross ahead in a big way but it got super close at the end."
Typically Leopard 3 was sailing at around 20 knots or equalling wind speed and benefitted this year from there being no park up in the lee of the island.
Finishing just over 20 minutes behind Leopard 3 was enough for Filip Balcaen's Maxi 72 Balthasar win the IMA Maxi class under IRC corrected time, albeit by just 30 seconds.
"It was the fastest lap I've done ever - our highest speed was 23 knots," commented Balcaen. "It was a fantastic tour around the island. You have a little bit of everything and that's really what we like. Our boat handling was good. The boat was okay today - everything worked."
Of their narrow victory, tactician Hamish Pepper added: "We sailed very well to our rating downwind and reaching against the bigger boats but they have got the legs on us upwind and in the choppier conditions. Around the bottom of the island it was pretty flat so we could compete."
The crews now have the weekend off before racing resumes with the RORC Caribbean 600 on Monday.
Full results available here.
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