Texas Youth Race Week began in 1991 as the Galveston Bay Tri-Club Regatta, but it traces its origins back to the first invitational Ragnot Regatta of 1961. TYRW was designated a US SAILING Junior Olympic event in 1997. The 2017 Texas Youth Race Week marked 20 years as a US SAILING Junior Olympic event.

Listen to an oral history interview with John and Catherine Focke, hosted online by Rice University’s Woodson Research Center, for more about the long tradition of Texas Youth Race Week.

In 2021, Texas Youth Race Week celebrated the 30th anniversary of the regatta.