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Sailing in George Town, Exuma
National Family Island Regatta
The main town of Great Exuma, set on the sheltered Elizabeth Harbour, a yachting and boating hub in the southern Bahamas. Each April its harbor hosts the National Family Island Regatta, the country's premier working-sloop race and one of the great gatherings of traditional Bahamian sailing.
Run by National Family Island Regatta Committee, with published dates and a real program.
Dates & details verified against: Official event site ↗
Why here
The National Family Island Regatta is the Super Bowl of Bahamian sailing, and Elizabeth Harbour at George Town is its stadium. Every April since 1954, wooden Bahamian sloops built and crewed on the Out Islands converge on Great Exuma to race for the title of best in the Bahamas, their vast single sails leaning hard over crews who hike out on long wooden planks called pries to keep the boats flat. These are not yachts. They are the workboats that once carried the islands' trade, kept alive and raced as a point of island pride, in Class A, B and C fleets that draw sailors and supporters from every settlement in the country. On shore the harborfront turns into a days-long festival of rake and scrape music, food stalls and celebration. Watching a fleet of these sloops round a mark under one enormous sail, crews stacked out over the water, is one of the most stirring sights in Caribbean sailing, and the regatta is the best window there is into the Bahamas' living maritime culture.
Best months
The regatta is held over about five days in late April in Elizabeth Harbour off George Town, with racing across the Class A, B and C sloop fleets and a shore festival running alongside. Trade winds in April are steady and the harbor is sheltered, which makes for close racing and easy spectating from shore or a chartered boat. Exact dates shift year to year around the last full week of April and are confirmed by the organising committee closer to the event. This is a spectator and cultural event; the sailing itself is by invited island crews.
Getting there & around
George Town on Great Exuma is reached by air from Nassau or direct from the United States, and Elizabeth Harbour sits right at the town, so the racing is watched from the waterfront, from Regatta Point, or from a boat on the water. Rooms in George Town are limited and book out for regatta week, so reserve well ahead or plan to stay on nearby cays or a boat. The shore festival is free; getting out among the fleet means chartering or hitching a ride with a local boat.
Skill levels: beginner
Schools & guides (2)
Exuma Sailing Club
ClubThe Exuma Sailing Club appears in the Bahamas Sailing Association's list of member clubs and has run since 2013. It teaches beginners in the Optimist dinghy from about age eight, moves older sailors of fifteen to eighteen into Sunfish racing, and introduces them to traditional Bahamian sloop sailing. Its stated purpose is to train young people of Exuma in the discipline of sailing and to compete in regattas throughout the Bahamas. The association's member list names the club but gives no town for it, and the club's own site names Exuma and its cays rather than George Town specifically.
National Family Island Regatta Committee
OrganizerThe National Family Island Regatta Committee has staged the National Family Island Regatta in Elizabeth Harbour off George Town, Exuma, every April since the first race in 1954. It organizes the racing of traditional Bahamian working sloops across the Class A, B and C fleets, sets the rules and class rules that keep the boats to native design, records the class winners, and runs the shore program that surrounds the event.
Also good for sailing in April:
Torn between National Family Island Regatta and Tobago Cays for April?
A plan settles it for your skill and budget, same-day.