The Tribune

THERE’S a temptation brewing on the waters, especially the churned-up waters around regattas. Now that sailing is the national sport - a much-welcomed and long overdue move - the attention to one version of the sport, Bahamian native sloop sailing, is greater than ever.

Record crowds gather at post-Covid revived regatta sites, drawn to the action from the start when the gun goes off and up to a dozen boats in Class A pull up anchor and hoist the oversized main sail to masthead, leaving us staring in awe at the sight.

Everything about the majestic native sloop defies the odds. The wooden vessels with their canvas-like sails billowing, flying from masts more than five stories high, nearly twice the height of the length of the 28ft boat. From onshore, we watch the age-old start, unlike one design class boats and new handicap rating racing yachts that jockey for position and cross the start line in full speed ahead for the upwind first leg, sloops line up like race horses before the gate is opened. Muscle and man and womanpower hoisting sail and upping anchor. The action never stops, the pulse never stops racing. Onshore, we watch controlled near-pandemonium as crew balances precipitously on a pry board and prepares to manoeuvre, then scrambles, sliding across like slithering eels for the fastest, smoothest tack possible, looking to gain a boat length or two over the nearest competitor.

But underlying the beauty of native sloop sailing from the anchor up and human mainsail hoist to the slacked jib-and-main downwind ride, there is a growing temptation to commercialize this sport that is so uniquely Bahamian. And that would be a tragedy. Like selling your soul for a box of Animal Crackers.

I understand the talk.

No price tag on Bahamian unique

It costs money to own and race any kind of sailboat. You’d be surprised how much. A new Star class racing machine – that’s the same boat that the late Sir Durward Knowles sailed to Olympic Gold in 1954 though no longer an Olympic class - can cost $70,000 or more. The 5.5 meter like Bahamians Gavin McKinney and Craig Symonette compete in around the world can run well three times that. Then there is the cost of transporting the boat and crew to regattas from Australia to the US to Norway where the world championship is most often held.

Those extreme one-design monohulls designed and built for international racing are a far cry from the native sloop that originated as a work boat. But there is something special about the sheer lines and simplicity of the native sloop. The sloop is a wooden vessel, the sails are not a fancy composite, the mast is Sitka spruce, there’s no instrumentation like GPS, no radar, not even a VHF radio. Nor is there mechanical advantage – no winches or grinders, just human strength. It’s pull and scamper and skipper and shout and go and shout some more, mostly yelling starboard even when on port because the boat on starboard has right of way. There is nothing quite like Bahamian native sloop racing anywhere in the world. For all the fancy regattas in places with exotic names, for all the round-the-world races that try men’s and women’s strength, stamina and strategy and make us all wonder how in the world they can do that, for all the various styles of racing from the child’s tub-like starter boat to the America’s Cup, there’s nothing anywhere that remotely compares to the raw magic of native sloop sailing.

And that is why it must be preserved with all traditions intact. And that means no sponsor logos on sails.

We know it costs money to campaign a native sloop, especially if you want to hit every regatta so crew get the most practice working together, you get the kinks worked out or vie for boat of the year.

Boats have to be towed from island to island, crew has to be transported. Once they arrive, they have to be fed and housed. The beer budget alone can be a killer. But start slapping logos on hulls and sails and see how the sport changes, the enthusiasm wanes, the commercialization creeps in and native sloop sailing loses its purity, sold for a few cents.

There are local experts who say it is only a matter of time. The day will come, they say, when sloop sailing caves in and joins most classes of racing sailboats, but elsewhere commercialisation is carefully governed by very detailed specifications set by World Sailing and still some regattas and a few classes like the 5.5 metre remain pure.

That isn’t to say that sponsorship of native sloop sailing should be banned, just redirected. Cartier shows its stuff through necklaces, watches or other accessories, not by splashing its name across the front of a gown.

In the same way, native sloop racing sponsors can get their money’s worth in a dozen creative ways. They can brand the crew providing crew shirts, caps, windbreakers or the drinks they celebrate or commiserate with. They can have feather banners, flags, tote bags, air time on TV and radio. Better yet, they can rebuild or otherwise improve regatta sites. Imagine a Kalik and conch salad village at Salt Pond, Long Island, or a Sands beer sculling contest leading up to the main regatta in Exuma. A sponsor could add sports events or charity fundraisers prior to or in tandem with regattas anywhere. They can decorate golf carts in places where they are suitable. They could host sailing demonstrations with trials in Montagu Bay with visitors and brand reef-safe sunscreen.

They can get their pound of flesh everywhere except on the hull or the sail of the native sloop because some things are just too valuable to be traded for a buck. And Bahamian sloop sailing is one of them.