2026 Powerboat and Offshore Racing Calendar Features Six XCAT Rounds

The 2026 UIM XCAT World Championship will run six rounds across the Gulf and beyond, with the season opener confirmed for Fujairah on April 17–19 and the finale scheduled for Dubai on December 11–13. Powerboat.News aggregated the full 2026 powerboat and offshore racing calendar, last updated on March 11, 2026, with the XCAT schedule corroborated by UIM Sport's official event listings, which place the Offshore World Championship XCAT in Fujairah on those same April dates.

The six-round structure gives the championship a wide geographic spread, though three venues remain unconfirmed. Round 2 falls on June 19–21, Round 3 on August 28–30, and Round 5 on November 27–29, with all three still listed as venue TBA on the XCAT site. Round 4 heads to Kuwait on October 29–31 before the season closes in Dubai. That Gulf bookending, Fujairah to start and Dubai to finish, mirrors the geography that defined the 2025 championship, which also concluded on the Dubai waterfront.

Victory Team arrives as defending champions with considerable authority. The squad claimed the 2025 Championship Overall title with 200 points, a 68-point gap over second-placed HPI Fujairah Racing Team on 132 and Team GB on 126 in third. In the Pole Position Overall standings the margins were far tighter: Victory Team posted 162 points to Sharjah Team's 161 and HPI Fujairah Racing Team's 156, with FAZ Marine close behind on 137. Victory Team clinched the championship with one race to spare in Dubai, described at the time as "a flawless home victory," before a December 14 finale that closed the 2025 season with the team confirmed as "the benchmark of offshore racing."

The broader 2026 UIM calendar surrounding XCAT is dense. The UIM E1 World Championship visits Lake Como, Italy on April 24–25 and Dubrovnik, Croatia on June 12–13. The Offshore World Championship 3D class runs at Rodi Garganico, Italy from June 18–21. Formula circuit events include an Endurance S3 round at Poses, France on May 1–3 and an F125/F250/F500 round at Boretto, Italy on June 12–14.

Across the Atlantic, the International Hot Rod Association announced its 2026 IHRA Offshore Series National Championship schedule on December 31, 2025, alongside the appointment of Tommy Thomassie as Executive Vice President, Director of Powerboating. The eight-stop domestic schedule opens in St. Petersburg, Florida on March 27–29, moves to New Orleans on April 10–12, then proceeds to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri on June 12–14, St. Clair, Michigan on July 24–26, Sheboygan, Wisconsin on August 7–9, and Orange Beach, Alabama on September 11–13. A May date and the World Championship venue remain TBA. IHRA owner Darryl Cuttell framed the Thomassie hire as part of a deliberate organizational build. "Powerboating is an important part of that plan, and Tommy is the right addition to help move it forward," Cuttell said.

With three XCAT venues still unannounced and the IHRA World Championship location undecided, the 2026 calendar remains a work in progress, but the confirmed anchors, Fujairah in April, Kuwait in October, and Dubai in December, already define an offshore season with serious ambition.