Stranded, Naked

Now that we have your attention.

This article is about Regatta Time in Abaco

Text and photos by Marilyn Mower

Getting ready for its 35th year, Regatta Time in Abaco is a family racing event with the emphasis on fun, but that doesn’t mean that these people don’t keep score and try to coax every bit of speed out of their boats.

Bobb Henderson flies 747-400 cargo jets for a living, but his real job is throwing the Cheeseburger in Paradise party each year at Fiddle Cay during Regatta Time in Abaco. That’s when his houseboat, Stranded Naked, becomes ground zero for the most famous annual event in the Bahamas and the grilling of 1,200 cheeseburgers.

Bobb wasn’t always the host with the most—he started out as a normal kid fishing and water skiing with the family’s boats. Then he learned to fly and began teaching piloting in Birmingham, Alabama. One of his students flew to the Abacos and came back raving about the place. So, in April 1980 he packed his single-engine Cessna 182RG and flew to Treasure Cay International airport. One look was all it took.
As a pilot for Eastern Airlines, he realized he could live on a boat in the Bahamas and commute to Miami. He expected to buy a sailboat, but a friend suggested he take a look at a particularly affordable small houseboat, one with a built-in 1,000-gallon cistern and a 90-horsepower engine. He bought it in Fort Lauderdale and added the upstairs bedroom. In October of 1988, perhaps not knowing houseboats don’t go to sea, he and a buddy headed east. One crazy adventure later (you can read about it on his Web site if you don’t hear it in person) Stranded Naked limped into Black Sound and found dock space at the Other Shore Club, where she’s been berthed ever since. That’s where Bobb discovered Regatta Time in Abaco.
His Cheeseburger in Paradise parties began as a way to celebrate the regatta with like-minded people who love the Abacos and Jimmy Buffet tunes. As the parties became an institution, they became more elaborate and expensive. Last year’s ticket was $10,000. The menu included 1,200 cheeseburgers, 300 hotdogs, 150 pounds of French fries, 100 gallons of rum punch, and 100 gallons of margaritas, plus everything required to set up a beach party with games and music on an uninhabited island and return it to pristine condition afterwards. Bobb’s wife, Patricia, designs outrageous T-shirts to commemorate each year’s party. The sale of the shirts plus help from Bahamas Department of Tourism, many local businesses in Green Turtle, the Regatta Committee, and Bristol Cellars Wine and Spirits help defray the cost of this all-day affair.
This year, the Stranded Naked party on July 2 is the kick-off event for the 35th Annual Regatta Time in Abaco, with stops at Green Turtle, Treasure Cay, Great Guana Cay, Marsh Harbour, and Hope Town, where the fifth race and final awards party will be held at Hope Town Harbour Lodge.
Regatta Time began as an effort to finance a traditional Bahamian sloop to represent Abaco in the George Town Regatta. The Abaco Rage, now based in Hope Town, is one of those original sloops. The first race of Regatta Time in Abaco was held off Marsh Harbour in September 1976 with ten cruising boats, four sloops from Nassau and one built in Man-O-War. Races were soon added to the series at other islands, and in 1982 the Regatta began using bronze artwork from the Johnston Studios foundry in Little Harbour for its trophies. Today, a  single committee, now led by David Ralph with Francisco de Cardenas as race chairman, oversees the entire nine or ten-day event, which always straddles both the American and Bahamian Independence Days.
The focus is no longer on Bahamian sloops but family cruisers, and the regatta typically begins in the northern Abacos for the convenience of boats sailing from the U.S. to participate.
The races incorporate a mix of traditional Olympic triangular courses and the ever popu-lar point-to-point islands courses. “It’s a very casual cruising regatta, said past Race Committee Co-chair Jon Ewing. “In my eight years on the committee, I think we had three protests. In what other regatta would you find full-displacement boats sailing without spinnakers in a class called ‘Mother Tub?’”
Indeed, Regatta Time is unique in its genuine comradery and competitors cheer loudly for each other. Some competitors are new to racing, such as Richard Voswinkle, a German citizen living in Nassau and sailing his boat in the Mother Tub class under a Panamanian flag. He had never raced before, but thought the 2009 regatta sounded like fun, so he brought his boat and joined in, acquiring crew as the regatta progressed. By the final day of sailing, his team had become a true United Nations with sailors from Germany, England, Scotland, the Bahamas, Switzerland, and the U.S.
Not having local knowledge isn’t much of a handicap, as the courses are generally short with marks—or the next island—always in sight. Every year, a number of race participants from distant ports fly in to charter boats from the Moorings fleets based in Marsh Harbour to join the regatta. In fact Moorings is offering 10 percent off 5-13 day charters on their Abaco bareboats starting July 1,  or on their 6-day or more crewed charters starting June 21, if booked by May 31.
The shrouds of many racing boats are decked out with participation flags from a dozen or more past regattas and children of some cruisers have grown up with the event. The Forest Law family from Charleston, racing their 60-footer, Shenanigan, has spent the last six summers competing, with all three sons learning to sail here. In fact, the Charleston Yacht Club is usually well represented, thanks to the organization of Mike Messinger a past commodore. In 2008 the club sent six boats, last year four.
The five races are interspersed with awards and lay day parties. These social events have a large following of land-based visitors. Traveling throughout the island group gives the boating visitors increased exposure to this cruising area and provides a taste of Abaco’s towns, resorts and pockets of remote isolation. For more information or an entry form visit regattatimeinabaco.com or contact David Ralph, 242-367-2677 or davralph@batelnet.bs or e-mail Coordinator Ruth Saunders, rudieces@gmail.com