The history of sailing in The Bahamas – Bahamas Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

If there is anyone in the Bahamas who is yet unconvinced that sailing has been the bedrock of transportation, boat building, ocean freighting, pleasure boating, commercial fishing, competitive sportsmanship, and finally a Royal Regatta with the future King and Queen of England racing against each other and teaming up with some of the very best Bahamian sailing talent, then you are definitely inconvincible.

Without sailboats it is highly unlikely that the Bahamas would exist, as it does today, as a nation of far flung island communities stretching some six hundred miles from southeast to northwest from just beyond the Windward Passage to less than 100 miles to the coast of Florida.

If you Google Boat Building in the Bahamas its pages are rich with historical facts of the very early settlers and their descendants who have passed on the art and science of boat building for generations.

In Man-O-War Cay in the Abacos we have Lewis Uriah Albury and Son Boat Works since 1927.

And then we have Harbour Island and Colonel Andrew Deveaux: The island played a central role in recapturing Nassau from the Spanish in 1783. Colonel Andrew Deveaux, a British Loyalist living in St. Augustine after the American Revolution, sailed to Harbour Island on his way to retake Nassau from the Spanish. Over a hundred men and 50 small fishing boats from Harbour Island, Spanish Wells and Eleuthera joined the successful expedition, taking the Nassau garrison of over 600 Spanish soldiers with less than 300 men. For their efforts, Harbour Islanders and men from Spanish Wells were awarded 6,000 acres on north Eleuthera, lands which they had cultivated for years but now took as their own. The land was granted on behalf of the Crown by Lord Dunmore, who had a summer home on Harbour Island and for which Dunmore Town is named. During the period, a Reverend Moss described the island as a tight and orderly community of sixty families, living mainly a maritime life, building their own ships, and growing subsistence crops and raking salt on the nearby mainland of Eleuthera.

And then: https://www.geni.com/people/Victor-Cleare/ 6000000019092287106

Anyone in The Bahamas who knows anything about boat building will have heard of Victor Cleare, whose skills created no fewer than nine impressive craft between 1920 and 1944, including the 165-foot Arawak, believed to be the biggest vessel ever built in these islands.

Mr Cleare, who was born in Harbour Island on December 12, 1900, was the sixth generation of Cleares in The Bahamas, a family descended from solid English stock whose roots are said to go all the way back to Anne Boleyn, the ill-fated second wife of King Henry VIII and mother of Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth I.

A self-taught boatbuilder, Victor developed his passion for sea-going craft through his father, Bruce, who owned several three-masted sailing ships. These were used to carry pineapples to Baltimore and to pick up mahogany in Havana for delivery to ports along the east coast of North America. The names of two are believed to be the Beatrice and the Corinthia, both of which are believed to have sunk in Harbour Island during the fierce hurricane of 1929.

Victors son, Paul, a retired businessman who developed a keen interest in Bahamas shipbuilding, has been sorting out family photographs which throw a fascinating light on his fathers halcyon days as a shipbuilder supreme.

Boatbuilding was his great love and he developed a great skill in the field as was so very apparent by the nine boats he later built, said Paul. The craft ranged in size from 40 feet up to the 165-foot Arawak and included the Saint Mary of Stafford, a 55-foot vessel built in Harbour Island in 1932 at the request of the then Roman Catholic bishop, who used it for travel to the Out Islands.

And then we come across the boat builders of Long Island in which the Royal Competitors sailed in the Jubilee Regatta: https://www.bahamasb2b.com/news/2013/09/three-generations-of-boat-builders

Trophies are everywhere: on shelves and tables and across the floor. Winners live in this house, and they span at least three generations. This is the house of the Knowles family in Mangrove Bush, Long Island. It is a house of boat builders and sailors. When it comes to Family Island regattas, they own the winningest boats.

The long hours spent in the sun shows in their cracked lips and leathery looking skin, burnt by the tropical sun. It shows in their toned muscles and steady hands.

I learned how to build boats from my grandfather, said 52-year-old Mark Knowles. Thats all he ever did, my grandfather. Back in the day the government used to build boats for the poor to fish. He had a year round job just building boats for the people to fish.

Two of his sons are learning the trade: Marco, the eldest at 21, and Miko, the youngest at 17. Marco has been helping me since he was four years old, said Mark. He currently works in construction, as do many of the men when regatta season ends.

Mark has won 14 regattas in his boat, the New Susan Chase, which pays homage to one of his fathers early boats. In the 2013 Regatta, he won the Governor Generals Cup. He lays claim on behalf of his family to building the fastest boats on the island. He does not divulge the boat building secret, but he said trophies tell their own stories.

And on the Bahamas Government Website - The Government > Non Residents > Culture > Regattas

A Brief History of Regattas by Howland Bottomley - Commodore Emeritus.

By the early 1950s, working sail was fast disappearing from this part of the world, The Grand Banks fishing schooner was all but gone, the Chesapeake oyster dredgers were no longer being replaced as they were laid tip, and the many vessels, still working under canvas in the Bahamas, had an uncertain future. In 1954 a small group of Bahamian and American yachtsmen conceived the idea of holding a regatta for the Bahamian working sailing craft.

The overall condition of the working fleet was not good and it was felt that the material condition of the boats would be improved by the preparations necessary to ready the vessel for racing competition. A regatta would also offer a fine opportunity for Bahamian sailors to all gather in one place, have some sport, and a chance for cruising yachtsmen to witness one of the last working sailing fleets in action and at the same time introduce them to the magnificent cruising grounds here in The Bahamas.

So it was in the late April 1954, nearly 70 Bahamian sloops, schooners, and dinghies gathered in Elizabeth Harbour for three days of racing. When it was all over the organisers of the event were so pleased with the success of their idea that they realized it must continue if possible. A regatta of this type would require a good organization and adequate funding. To accomplish this, the Out Island Squadron was formed. Made up of interested Bahamian and American yachtsmen, the Out Island Squadron took on the responsibility of sponsoring what was to become an annual event in George Town. From 1954 to 1967 this dedicated organization developed the Regatta from its birth to its place as one of the outstanding annual events in Bahamian affairs.

It is regrettable that Google does not have more information about other boat building and sailing islands such as Mangrove Cay and Lisbon Creek which it does have a photo of a boat builder, but not even his name. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-old-retired-black-bahamian-boat-builder-with-some-of-his-old-boats-13029906.html

Also Ragged Island has some claim to fame in this regard, but there is no public information to be had on it.

But the good news is that sailing is not in decline in the Bahamas and in fact very much on the upswing. Not for the reasons of yesteryear, but a new found interest in a sport that boys and girls, men and women can compete in the same event, not unlike the future King and Queen did last week.

The new class of sailboat for children between the age of eight and fourteen is the Optimist. A small, one person sailing dinghy that is an Olympic Class boat. On New Providence there are three Clubs which offer training in this Class. The Royal Nassau Sailing Club, The Nassau Yacht Club and the Lyford Cay Club. There are Clubs in Grand Bahama, Abaco, Harbour Island, Exuma and Eleuthera as well as Long Island although Long Island is currently inactive. There is an annual National Regatta for this Class held on different islands each year, and the Bahamas is hosting the North American Championships in Nassau in November when some two hundred children from North America and the Caribbean will come to Nassau to sail in what has been described as the Best Sailing Destination in the World.

This prestigious accolade was given by a group of senior sailors known as the Star Sailors League who, prior to COVID-19 came to Nassau each year in November, with their Star boats and spent a couple of weeks sailing and racing in Montagu Bay. It was this group that gave the people of the Bahamas the 60 flag pole that stands on the pier in front of Fort Montagu.

It was, of course, the Star Class boat that the late Sir Durwood Knowles won Olympic Gold sailing with the late Cecil Cooke in 1964.

And so, as Diane Philips has urged the Government of the Bahamas to retire the National sport of Cricket, whose ship has sailed now and replace it with Sailing as the National Sport of the Bahamas.

BRUCE G RAINE

Nassau,

March 26, 2022.

Continue reading here:

The history of sailing in The Bahamas - Bahamas Tribune