Scow design wins Transatlantic Race

The Mach 50 Palanad 4 (FRA), owned by Olivier Magre and skippered by his son Antoine Magre, was confirmed as the overall winner of the 2026 RORC Transatlantic Race on IRC corrected time. The scow-design by Sam Manuard completed the 3,000 mile race from Lanzarote to Antigua in an elapsed time of 8 Days 05 Hours 55 Minutes and 50 Seconds.

“For me, as a father, this is a fantastic dream,” said Magre. “To win the RORC Transatlantic Race with my son is the greatest result I could imagine in sailing. I am incredibly proud of Antoine and what he has achieved.”

The crew also included Manuard, Jean-Philippe Saliou, Pablo Santurde, Simon Koster, and Richard Fromentin.

“At every moment I am the father,” he smiled. “I tell Antoine to be careful, to look after himself. But on the boat, he is the boss. He makes the decisions, and the crew follows him. For me, it was easy to be a crew member. I prepared food, I helped where I could. The mix was fantastic.”

This was the second offshore race for the Mach 50 following its debut at the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race. “The Fastnet was only our third time sailing the boat,” said Antoine Magre. “We had almost no preparation. For this race, we had the whole autumn to train and refine everything. The difference was enormous.

“This race is a very strong first proof of concept. We believed in the potential of the scow bow in IRC, but it had to be proven in real offshore conditions. Winning overall here really sets the bar for what comes next.

“This was largely a VMG downwind race, which is not necessarily the boat’s strongest point. But even our weaker angles are faster than many boats’ strongest ones. That made the difference over distance.”

He highlighted that the result opens the door to head-to-head competition with some of the fastest IRC platforms in the world for the RORC Caribbean 600 next month. “Now we can look forward to racing against the Carkeek 50s, TP52s, Volvo 70s, and others. This race shows Palanad 4 belongs in that company.”

Event details – Results – Tracking

The 12th edition of the RORC Transatlantic Race started January 11 and extends 3000 nm from the Canary Islands to Antigua.

Elapsed Records:
Multihull: 2026 – Jason Carroll’s MOD70 Argo (USA) – 04 Days 23 Hrs 51 Mins 15 Secs.
Monohull: 2026 – Baltic 111 Raven, skippered by Damien Durchon – 06 Days 22 Hrs 27 Mins 47 Secs

Source: RORC