By Delayna Earley
The Island News
The Beaufort River will be dotted with sails this weekend as the Beaufort Yacht and Sailing Club hosts its 59th Lowcountry Regatta, a tradition that has been bringing sailors of every age to these waters for nearly six decades, and one that invites the whole community to pull up a spot on the bank and watch.
The age range alone tells you most of what you need to know about the day. Competitors stretch from 9 years old to 94, and organizers say that intergenerational mix is the heart of the event.
“It is truly a family-friendly day,” said Kelly Lesesne, services manager and director of summer camp at the club.
Racing is set for Saturday, June 27, and Sunday, June 28, with the first boats expected on the water around 1 p.m. Saturday and the day’s final race starting near 4 p.m. The regatta is free for spectators, who can watch from the club’s docks or from The Sands as courses are set in front of the clubhouse and out toward the river. On Saturday evening, the club will host its traditional Lowcountry boil, catered by Sea Eagle Market; dinner tickets have already sold out, but Kona Ice will be on-site around 4 p.m. for anyone who comes out to take in the races.
This year’s regatta carries an extra layer of competition. It is also hosting the Sunfish Regional Championship, which serves as a qualifier for the Sunfish World Championship which will be held this year in St. Croix. Whoever wins the Sunfish fleet earns a spot on the world stage.
As of midweek, 34 boats were registered, a number organizers expect to climb as the forecast firms up. The fleets on the water will include Sunfish, Optimists – among them a first-ever Opti Green fleet for the youngest, newest racers – Open Skiffs, Y Flyers, Highlanders and the Sea Island One Design, a boat built specifically for the rivers of the Lowcountry and raced almost nowhere else in the world.
One of the local sailors to watch is 13-year-old Maxwell Whitmore, who will race in the Open Skiff class. His mother, Ashleigh Whitmore, said the family came to the sport by accident and her son started as a true beginner at 8, with the Beaufort Yacht and Sailing Club.
“We are not a sailing family,” she said. “I wish I could say I could help him, but I have no idea what he’s doing out there, which I think is why he chose it.”
Nearly five years later, sailing has shaped far more than her son’s time on the water.
“It has formed my son,” she said, “just in confidence on the water, and the skills, and having to figure out how the wind is going. Things break and you just keep going.”
That sense of resilience, the sailors say, is part of what makes the sport worth passing down.
“You have the 94-year-old who’s going to be encouraging the 8-year-old,” Whitmore said, “because he loves sailing and wants to get the next generation to enjoy it.”
For Paul Kowalski, general manager of the Beaufort Yacht and Sailing Club, that next generation is exactly the point.
“Our goal here is to promote sailing and make it accessible to the community,” Kowalski said. “It’s a lifetime hobby that can last your whole life. That’s what makes it special.”
Sailing has long carried a reputation as a sport reserved for the privileged, something, like golf, that families assume is out of reach before they ever ask. But Whitmore and the club are hoping to change that perception. The club supports Beaufort Community Sailing and Boating, a nonprofit that runs sailing instruction on the property and offers scholarships and need-based help so that cost doesn’t keep a child off the water.
“I would love to get the word out that it’s open to everyone in the community,” Whitmore said. “I never would have known it was open to us, except a friend told me.”
Putting on a regatta of this size takes a large number of people according to Kowalsi. Organizers estimate around 70 volunteers from the club help run the weekend, crewing safety boats, preparing meals, managing parking and tracking the start and finish of every race. Organizers also keep a close eye on summer weather, monitoring lightning and storm tracks and standing ready with safety boats and a race-abandonment protocol if conditions turn.
If the weather does cooperate, it will be a full weekend on the water and the club says it owes the day to the people behind the scenes.
“It takes many people on the water,” Lesesne said, noting that search-and-rescue crews are part of the team, too. “It truly takes so much effort to make an event like this happen.”
The 59th Lowcountry Regatta runs Saturday and Sunday at the Beaufort Yacht and Sailing Club rain or shine. If the racing has to be canceled due to weather, there will be games set up indoors for the sailors to enjoy.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
