Panhandle · Crawfordville
Big Bend sailing club off Shell Point, organized in 1969 by sailboat racers. Cruising and buoy racing on Apalachee Bay, the annual Stephen C. Smith Memorial Regatta, and youth sailing through Apalachee Bay Community Sailing.
Gobbler Regatta and Leftover Feast
Post-Thanksgiving club regatta on Apalachee Bay off Shell Point, followed by a leftovers potluck at the clubhouse.
New Year's Day club regatta on Apalachee Bay, run by the ABYC vice commodore.
The Big Bend is the emptiest sailing coast in Florida: the long, shallow, marsh-edged curve between the Panhandle and the peninsula, where towns are few and yacht clubs fewer. ABYC at Shell Point is what organized sailing looks like out here: a club started by sailboat racers in 1969, still running PHRF buoy racing and cruising on Apalachee Bay, plus fixtures like the Puffin Race alongside the annual Stephen C. Smith Memorial Regatta.
Membership is deliberately open. Sailors, powerboat owners, and people with no boat at all are all welcome to join and take part, which on a coast with a thin population is the only membership policy that keeps a club alive. The same logic runs the youth side: the club sponsors Apalachee Bay Community Sailing rather than gatekeeping its own junior fleet, putting local kids on the water regardless of whose burgee their parents fly.
Shell Point sits south of Tallahassee at the top of the bay, and for the capital’s sailors it is effectively the home coast. Nobody joins ABYC for a dining room. They join for the racing, the raft-ups, and the fact that on this stretch of the Gulf, this is where the sailors are.
Apalachee Bay Yacht Club is a private club. Membership is subject to the club's approval. For current membership costs and how to apply, contact the club's membership office.
Featured Private Panhandle · Pensacola · est. 1908
Originally organized 1908 as the Pensacola Yacht and Motor Boat Club; chartered 1910. Charter member of the Gulf Yachting Association and a US Sailing affiliate. Deep junior fleet with Optimists, 470s, Lasers, and catamarans.
Private Panhandle · Panama City Beach · est. 1986
Private nonprofit yacht club chartered 1986 along the Gulf Coast in the Bay Point community at the Marriott Resort, Panama City Beach. ~200 members; calendar weighted toward cruising and social events rather than active racing.
Community Panhandle · Fort Walton Beach · est. 1992
US Sailing certified Community Sailing Center, a 501(c)(3) founded 1992, running youth camps, race teams, and four high-school sailing programs on Choctawhatchee Bay out of Fort Walton Yacht Club. Open to the public, program-fee based, with scholarships.