SAILING · MID-JULY
Bellingham Race Week
The Pacific Northwest’s biggest sailing regatta, now racing on Bellingham Bay.
In 2025 the Pacific Northwest’s biggest sailing regatta packed up and moved to Bellingham, and Race Week has been one of the best free shows on the water ever since. For a week each July, dozens of boats fill the bay with color and the harbor turns into a party every evening.
A week of racing
Race Week is a multi-day regatta with several fleets running buoy, distance, and pursuit races out of Squalicum Harbor. Spinnakers everywhere, crews hiking out over the rail, Mt Baker on the horizon — it is a spectacle even if you do not know a jib from a mainsail. The racing runs the third week of July.
The shoreside scene
Half the appeal happens on land. Each evening brings post-race parties with live music at Fisherman’s Pavilion, a marketplace, and the buzz a few hundred visiting sailors create. The harbor restaurants and Hotel Bellwether sit right in the middle of it.
How to watch
You do not need a boat. The best vantage points are the Squalicum Harbor jetties, Zuanich Point Park, and the South Bay Trail, or anywhere along the waterfront on a clear afternoon. Bring binoculars and a coffee and watch the fleet round the marks.
Thinking about life here?
Events like this are the texture of a year in Bellingham. See everything within ninety minutes of town on the interactive Fun Guide — and if you are starting to picture this as your own backyard, let us talk. I am Genaro Shaffer, a broker who actually lives this stuff.