More than 70 years after the first National Family Island Regatta in Elizabeth Harbour, Exuma, the same shallow waters that once carried cargo sloops now host boats built by teenagers who learned the trade from donated tools and salvaged hardware.
In the 1850s, Bahamian shipwrights were launching roughly 33 vessels a year — schooners, sloops, and dinghies shaped from native mahogany, horseflesh, and lignum vitae. By the 1940s, the industry had shrunk to a handful of boats annually. What happened in between — and what’s happening now — is less a story of decline than of scattered, stubborn revival. The question is not whether the Bahamas still builds wooden boats, but how the practice survives at all, given the forces working against it: globalized materials, aging practitioners, and the quiet erosion of knowledge as elders die.
This article is for anyone curious about craft traditions that refuse to disappear neatly. It traces the preservation of Bahamian boatbuilding through the people, regattas, and ad-hoc networks that keep it afloat — not as a museum piece, but as a living, contested practice shaped differently on every island.
Through a mix of community-driven regattas, youth building programs, and grassroots tool donation networks, pockets of the Bahamas are keeping wooden boatbuilding alive — but only just. The practice varies significantly from island to island, and without sustained support for both materials and mentorship, knowledge risks being lost with each generation. The preservation effort is real, uneven, and far from guaranteed.
| Island / Region | Notable Boat Type | Distinctive Feature | Status of Tradition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abaco | Dinghy, Schooner | Full transoms, smooth finish; quality dinghies; Man-O-War Cay was a hub | Dwindling; a few builders remain |
| Andros | Dinghy, Smack | Roughly constructed, convex or moon sheers, known for speed | Small-scale building continues, mostly for local use |
| Long Island | Sloop, Smack | Deep-draft sloops for choppy seas; bare-head smacks for salt transport | Regatta revived in 1967; youth involvement growing |
| Eleuthera (Savannah Sound) | Dinghy | Flat-bottomed, narrow design for shallow shoals | Few active builders; tradition mostly remembered |
| Exuma | Sloop | Home of the National Family Island Regatta; center of regatta culture | Active regatta scene; building skills sustained by event demand |
No single Bahamian boatbuilding tradition exists. The craft takes a different shape — literally and culturally — on each island, shaped by local materials, historical trade routes, and the specific maritime conditions of each anchorage.
Where the Knowledge Came From
The roots of Bahamian wooden boatbuilding trace to the late 18th century, when Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution brought seafaring knowledge to the islands. A 1775 report by Governor Brown noted that the archipelago held “excellent timber” for ship construction, and the first vessels were built for wrecking, inter-island cargo, and transporting oranges, braziletto wood, and pineapples to Caribbean and American markets. By 1813, the Privy Council had established a mailboat service, and the first formal route began in 1832, with Crooked Island as the chief station. The pinnacle came around 1859, when Government Blue Books recorded 33 ships launched in a single year.
During the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), Bahamian vessels ran contraband through the Union blockade. The sponging boom of the 1890s and early 1900s kept shipwrights busy — at one point the sponging fleet included 265 schooners, 322 sloops, and 2,808 dinghies. The collapse of the sponge trade in 1938, combined with the devastation of the 1926 and 1929 hurricanes, ended the era of large-scale schooner construction. By the 1940s, building had slowed to a trickle.
What matters for the preservation question is that the knowledge never fully disappeared. It went underground, kept alive by a small number of builders on islands like Abaco, Andros, and Long Island, often working on commission for local fishermen or for the regatta circuit that had begun as early as 1898 in Deadman’s Cay, Long Island.
How a Boat Takes Shape
Traditional Bahamian boatbuilding followed rules of thumb, not blueprints. The keel length determined everything: beam, deck length, mast position, and boom length. Builders worked entirely by eye and experience, using native hardwoods harvested from the surrounding bush.
The keel, usually long-leaf Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea), was laid first. Branches and roots of hardwood trees — horseflesh (Lysukina paucifolia) for framing, mahogany for knees and stern posts — were squared by hand and cured by soaking in salt water. Ribs were steam-shaped, joined to floor timbers, and secured to the keel. Station frames were spaced 12 to 24 inches apart.
Pine planking 1.5 to 4 inches thick was applied starting with a sheer plank clamped to deck beams. Builders worked both upward and downward, ending with a custom-shaped shutter plank. Planks were secured with hot-dipped galvanized iron nails, copper fastenings, or wooden pegs.
Seams were packed with cotton strands, then painted with white lead and linseed oil, and sealed with a mixture of pine tar and pitch heated in a pitch pot. This waterproofing was critical for vessels that would spend months at sea in the sponge and salt trades.
Decks were supported by beams and crosspieces, with seats, storage compartments, and cabins built from pine. The rudder was hand-shaped from mahogany, pine, or cedar, attached via gudgeons to a rudder post with pintles. The tiller was carved from a single piece of hardwood.
Tools were minimal: foot and lip adz, hand saws, augers, mallets, caulking irons, chisels, smoothing planes, and scrapers. Most were imported, and that reliance on outside materials remains the single biggest bottleneck for the craft today.
Regattas as a Preservation Mechanism
If boatbuilding is the practice, regattas are the reason it still exists. Sailing regattas have been held in the Bahamas for more than 70 years. The first National Family Island Regatta took place in April 1954 in Elizabeth Harbour, Exuma, organized to celebrate and sustain the inter-island sloop tradition. Today, regattas on Long Island, Exuma, Abaco, and other islands create a steady demand for built boats — and a reason for young people to learn the trade.
On Long Island, the regatta at Deadman’s Cay had begun as early as 1898, died out in the 1940s, and was revived in 1967 explicitly to “retain sailing heritage and support boatbuilding,” according to museum records. The revival was deliberate: community leaders recognized that without the regatta, there would be no reason to build.
If you attend the National Family Island Regatta in Exuma (typically held in April), look for the E-Class boats — small sloops built by teenagers. These are the vessels that represent the next generation of the craft. Talk to the builders if they’re willing; most are proud to explain how they sourced the wood and fitted the rig.
But regattas alone cannot solve the infrastructure problem. Building a wooden boat requires hand tools (chisels, handsaws, planes, mallets), measuring tools (tape measures, squares, compasses), power tools (drills, jigsaws, band saws), and specialized hardware — mast blocks, shackles, chain plates, cleats, pintels, gudgeons, anchor line, and stainless steel screws. Most of these items must be imported, and shipping costs are prohibitive for many island communities.
The Donation Network That Keeps Building Afloat
Enter Captain Ken, a sailor who calls himself “the silent sponsor of the sloops.” He collects used tools and parts — chisels, sail tracks, shackles, stainless hardware — and distributes them to Bahamian boatbuilders from his sailboat Slowpoke. Tides Marine of Fort Lauderdale donated five new sail tracks. The Richmond Yacht Club Foundation of Richmond, California, shipped 49 pounds of stainless steel used boat parts to Black Point Settlement, Exuma, specifically for junior sailors who are building E-Class boats.
This ad-hoc network is the closest thing to a preservation infrastructure the craft has. It’s not funded by the government or a major cultural institution. It’s a grassroots effort sustained by individual donations, yacht club contributions, and the willingness of a few key people to navigate the logistics of shipping parts to islands that lack hardware stores.
It’s easy to romanticize this as a “community pulling together” story. The reality is more fragile. The National Museum of the Bahamas notes that the country is “losing small communities rapidly” and that the loss of clinics, schools, and libraries on outer islands compounds the erosion of craft knowledge. Boatbuilding is not just a skills problem — it’s a demographic problem. Young people leave for Nassau or abroad, and the communities that sustained the tradition hollow out.
Captain Ken has considered launching a GoFundMe campaign to cover shipping and logistics for tools and parts. As of early 2026, no formal fundraising drive had been announced, but the need is well documented. Jan Pehrson, a sailing photojournalist who has documented the situation, notes that youth in the Bahamas are building E-Class boats and sailing craft they helped create — but the pipeline of materials is precarious.
Context and Comparison: Island by Island, Boat by Boat
One of the most persistent outsider misconceptions is that Bahamian boatbuilding is a single, unified tradition. In reality, the differences between islands are as significant as the similarities. The table below shows how boat types, construction styles, and preservation status vary across the archipelago.
| Boat Type | Length Range | Primary Use | Regional Variation | Preservation Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dinghy | 9–18 ft | Fishing, cargo, inter-island transport | Abaco: full transoms, smooth finish. Andros: convex sheers, fast. Eleuthera: flat-bottomed for shoals | Still built for local use, but fewer builders each year |
| Sloop / Smack | 18–40 ft | Fishing, regatta racing, cargo | Gaff-rigged smack: shorter mast, high-peaked sail. Bare-head smack: no bowsprit, deeper draft, for choppy seas. Sloop: single mast mortised into keel behind stem | Regatta demand sustains some building; aging builders |
| Schooner | ~50 ft (35 ft on keel) | Sponging, turtling, cargo, Prohibition-era liquor hauling | Two or more masts, gaff-rigged, long bowsprit. Crew of 20, carrying 8–10 dinghies on deck. Built on Abaco, Andros, Harbour Island (1890–1938) | No longer built; last schooner constructed in 1938 |
Another common simplification is to treat the “Bahamian sloop” as a single design. The bare-head smack, which lacks a bowsprit and was built on Andros, Eleuthera, and Long Island for salt transport from Turks and Caicos, is a different vessel entirely from the bowsprit sloop used in the Exuma regattas. Calling them all “sloops” erases important regional adaptations.
On Abaco, the 1949 Commissioner’s Report for Man-O-War Cay noted that shipbuilding was the chief industry, with most adult males engaged in it, and that three larger boats were built that year for American visitors. Today, the village has a handful of builders. On Long Island, the introduction of electricity and paved roads in 1992 transformed the economy, but subsequent recessions and Hurricane Joaquin devastated the island’s boatbuilding infrastructure. The National Association of the Bahamas (NAGB) has warned that as elders die out, “old story talk and community tales of events and folklore of place are quickly lost to Westernisation.”
- Bahamian boatbuilding is not a single tradition — it varies by island, boat type, and local materials, and preservation efforts must account for that diversity.
- Regattas create demand for built boats, but they don’t solve the materials and tools bottleneck that is the biggest obstacle to the craft’s survival.
- Grassroots donation networks (Captain Ken, yacht club contributions) are currently the most effective preservation mechanism, but they are fragile and depend on a few individuals.
- The loss of small communities — with schools, clinics, and elders leaving — is the underlying threat that no tool donation can fix.
Questions Readers Ask About Bahamian Boatbuilding
Is Bahamian boatbuilding still a living tradition or just a tourist attraction?
It’s both, and the tension between those two realities is unresolved. Regattas draw tourists, and some boatbuilding is now done with visitors in mind. But on islands like Long Island and Andros, boats are still built for fishing, transport, and racing — not for display. The practice is living, but fragile.
Why can’t Bahamian boatbuilders just use modern materials?
Many do, for some parts — epoxy, stainless steel fastenings, synthetic sailcloth. But the traditional knowledge of working with native hardwoods (horseflesh, lignum vitae, mahogany) and the specific hull shapes that evolved for local sea conditions is what distinguishes Bahamian boats. Once that knowledge is lost, substituting modern materials won’t restore it.
Can visitors learn boatbuilding during a trip to the Bahamas?
Not in a formal way — there are no boatbuilding schools or workshops open to tourists. However, the National Association of the Bahamas has emphasized that cultural heritage organizations are working to give indigenous Bahamians access to their history. Visitors can support this by attending regattas, donating tools if they have them, and engaging respectfully with builders.
What’s the hardest part of building a traditional Bahamian boat today?
Getting tools and parts. Manufactured items — from chisels to sail tracks to stainless steel screws — must be brought into the islands, and shipping costs are high. Captain Ken’s donation network is the most direct response to this bottleneck, but it’s not a permanent solution.
Is the Bahamian government doing anything to preserve boatbuilding?
There is no dedicated government program for boatbuilding preservation. The National Museum of the Bahamas and the National Family Island Regatta receive some institutional support, but the NAGB has warned that money and resources have been “withdrawn from small indigenous communities, schools, clinics, and community centres” in favor of offshore developments, causing “devastating cultural impact on local identity.”
What the Future of the Craft Depends On
The survival of Bahamian wooden boatbuilding doesn’t hinge on a single intervention. It depends on whether the donation networks can become sustainable supply chains, whether the regattas continue to create demand for built boats, and — most of all — whether young Bahamians see a future in a trade that requires patience, physical skill, and a willingness to work with wood that no machine can shape. The craft is a record of how people adapted to the specific conditions of an archipelago: the wind, the currents, the timber that grew in the bush. Losing it would be more than a loss of technique. It would be the loss of a way of reading the water. For more on how Bahamian traditions are being sustained against the odds, read Bahamian Junkanoo: Unmasking the Rhythms of Rebellion and Resilience, which traces another thread of cultural survival through the islands.
Sources and further reading
Grand Bahama Museum. “Boatbuilding in the Bahamas: A Legacy of Craftsmanship and Culture.” 🔗
National Association of the Bahamas. “Cultural Heritage & Erasure: Protecting Our Inheritance and Patrimony.” 🔗
Pehrson, Jan. “Helping the Sport Thrive in the Bahamas.” Sailing Scuttlebutt, 2026. 🔗
Native Stew. “A History of Boat Building in the Bahamas.” 2025. 🔗
Related reading on IslandHopperGuides
Settlers’ Heritage: Exploring the History of the First Bahamian Families — The Loyalist migration that brought boatbuilding knowledge to the islands.
The Intricate Craft of Shell Art in the Bahamas — Another Bahamian handcraft tradition facing similar pressures of generational knowledge loss.
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