Every year, for four days just, the best sailors out of every important island in the Bahamas converge at Elizabeth Harbour on Exuma Island for the National Household Island Regatta. Over these four days, Bahamian sailors arrive willing to cruise their locally-built sloops for the much desired “Best in the Bahamas” title family island hack.
Your competition is brutal and the atmosphere is alive with pleasure as boating fans all over the world descend with this picturesque island in the sun. Since the first battle presented in April 1954, the National Household Island Regatta has grown in dimensions and popularity.
Nowadays, even though the battle stays the key interest, visitors are asked to be involved in numerous onshore activities including style reveals, splendor pageants, weightlifting contests, volleyball tournaments, and countless parties. That festival truly is significantly diffent from their early days once the ships were smaller and the participants fewer.
It had been in April 1954, when about 70 Bahamian schooners, dinghies and sloops built in Elizabeth Harbour for a three-day racing event. The initial participants in the event were excited to compete and truly enticed by the prize offered for winning the competition.
Unlike the ships you see today competitive in the event, the first sailors in 1954 raced in the exact same ships they used to make their livelihood. These working boats were fast, but sailors understood they’d stay a better possibility of winning the reward income if they had even more quickly boats.
That aggressive spirit led several sailors to enter the battle with ships crafted for rate in the 2nd year of competition. One of many early aims of the regatta was to simply help keep the boat-building abilities of the Bahamians, and with the reward income being an attraction, Bahamian sailors were motivated to keep up this tradition.
Nowadays, the regatta brings top-notch racing ships from practically every island in the Bahamas, which are categorized under certainly one of five classes, A through E. Even though the battle has changed, the target stays the exact same: prove you to ultimately be the best sailor in the Bahamas.
The Out Island Squadron Committee The first planners were thrilled that the event was this kind of success, however they shortly understood that when the event was to keep to develop, they would need to variety an effective committee that would oversee it each year. Thus, the Out Island Squadron was created.
The committee was comprised of serious boaters from the Bahamas in addition to from the United Claims, and these people needed on the duty of sponsoring and preparing the regatta. From 1954 to 1967, this same committee structured what came to be a popular regatta annual function in Elizabeth Harbour, in wonderful and historic George Area, on exotic Exuma Island.
Household Island Regatta Rules The success of the event always depended on the abilities and enthusiasm of the sailors and as decades gone by, the quality of the ships and their drivers improved. The National Household Island Regatta is all about opposition and excellence.
World-class sailors are pitted against one another in severe opposition that tests talent and endurance. The racing principles dictate that the sailing boats should be made, developed and sailed with a Bahamian. Additionally there are strict constraints on the building resources used to be able to keep these ships as tightly connected to their old-fashioned origins as possible.
Though the entire world of sailing has changed in many ways, the National Island Household Regatta in Elizabeth Harbour, George Area is among the last places to see sailing boats crafted in the unique Bahamian tradition. Sitting on the shores of Elizabeth Harbour and seeing the birth of a normal Bahamian schooner is just a wonderful function to not be forgotten.