2023 Anguilla Boat Race Schedule
May 18, 2023
May 29 - A Class on Meads Bay - Shut Up & Win
May 30 - A Class on Sandy Ground - Anguilla Day (Premier's Cup)
June 10 - B Class on Meads Bay - West Fest
June 11 - A Class on Meads Bay - West Fest
June 12 - A/B Class on Sandy Ground - King's Birthday/Sports Day
June 18 - A Class on Meads Bay - Albert "Belto" Hughes Memorial
July 2 - A Class on Sandy Ground - Albert Romney Memorial
July 30 - A Class on Sandy Ground, Peter Perkins
August 6 - A/B Class on Sandy Ground - Heineken August Sunday
August 7 - A/B Class on Sandy Ground - August Monday
August 8 - A Class on Sandy Ground - August Tuesday
August 9 - A Class on Sandy Ground - August Wednesday
August 10 - A/B Class on Meads Bay - August Thursday
August 13 - A/B Class on Sandy Ground - Champ of Champs
The history of Anguilla's boat racing - excerpted from the Anguilla Summer Festival website
The art of boat racing was born out of the Anguillians’ natural love for and dependence of the sea. This love was further cemented by the hardships of life on the island, and is symbolic of the struggle for survival, that Anguillians endured on the almost desert terrain. The frequency of droughts forced an intimate dependence on the sea, to compliment and subsidise what the land could not offer. The failure of the plantation economy from the 1700’s, and the severe economic conditions forced Anguillian menfolk to seek employment overseas. This included traveling to the Dominican Republic to cut cane in the prosperous cane fields of Macoris and La Romana. It is through these experiences – the dependence on the sea and the voyages to the Dominican Republic – that the art of boat building and the skills of boat racing were born.