The Antigua Bermuda Race Returns: 935 Miles of Open Atlantic

After a two-year hiatus, the Antigua Bermuda Race is back — and the fifth edition promises to be one of the most compelling offshore races in the Caribbean calendar. The fleet departs English Harbour, Antigua on April 29, bound for Bermuda across 935 nautical miles of open tropical Atlantic.

Organized by the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in partnership with Antigua Sailing Week, with backing from the Bermuda Tourism Authority, Goslings Rum, and Fairhaven Shipyard, the race has become a natural extension of the Antigua Sailing Week festivities. Crews who've spent a week racing in the trades around Antigua can now point their bows north and keep going — trading buoy racing for a proper bluewater passage.

The route is deceptively simple on a chart: north from Antigua, past Barbuda, and then into open ocean until Bermuda appears on the horizon. In practice, the passage demands real offshore seamanship. Once clear of Barbuda, there is no land for roughly a thousand miles. Crews will navigate the transition from the reliable northeast trades into the variable winds of the Bermuda-Azores High, a meteorological puzzle that rewards careful weather routing and punishes complacency.

The race typically takes between four and seven days depending on the boat and conditions — long enough to require proper watch systems, provisioning, and the kind of crew management that separates coastal sailors from bluewater hands.

The race is open to a broad fleet: IRC and CSA racing yachts, cruiser-racers, super yachts, and multihulls all have their own classes. There's also a dedicated category for classic yachts and double-handed teams, reflecting the race's inclusive philosophy. One notable feature is the CSA motor-sailing handicap — yachts can use their engines and still receive a result, subject to a time penalty. It's a pragmatic nod to the reality that not every boat heading north is a stripped-out racer.

Minimum LOA is 35 feet, minimum crew is two, and Cat 1 ISAF offshore safety equipment is required, along with satellite communications and AIS. These aren't casual requirements — they reflect the seriousness of an open-ocean passage.

The timing is no accident. The race finish coincides with SailGP Bermuda on May 9-10, turning the island into a hub for the global sailing community. Crews arriving from Antigua will have time to recover, clean up their boats, and settle into the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club for the awards ceremony on May 7 before the foiling cats hit the Great Sound.

For cruisers watching from the sidelines, the Antigua Bermuda Race is worth tracking even if you're not entering. The weather patterns the fleet encounters — the trade wind belt, the horse latitudes, the Bermuda High — are the same systems every northbound cruiser has to navigate when leaving the Caribbean in spring. The race tracker is essentially a real-time case study in Atlantic passage planning.

Whether you're racing under IRC, cruising under CSA with a motor-sailing allowance, or sailing double-handed with your partner, this is one of the few races that genuinely bridges the gap between racing and cruising. The ocean doesn't care about your rating certificate — it just wants to know if you and your boat are ready for 935 miles of open water.