Spring Fling Fun Regatta

The last entry on the regatta calendar at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron is its least solemn. The Spring Fling Fun Regatta belongs to the club's American 18 fleet, with Neil Edmundson as regatta chair, and it sits apart from the Boat of the Year point-chasing of the Cherry Pie and Pot O' Gold. The American 18 is a sloop-rigged daysailer the Squadron keeps in its boatshare program and uses to teach adults; the fleet that has grown up around it sails in crews of two or three, pairs newcomers with experienced hands on short windward-leeward courses in Sarasota Bay and comes ashore to debrief. Racing is staged from the club's City Island grounds on Ken Thompson Parkway, its home since 1958.