Foundation postpones Sarasota-Havana Regatta

Sarasota Yacht Club Charitable Foundation officials decided last night to postpone the Sarasota-Havana Regatta because they didn’t receive permission to travel to Cuba from the Office of Foreign Asset Control of the U.S. Treasury Department by a Feb. 15 deadline race organizers had set.

But organizers still have some hope that 2011 could be the year that they set sail to Cuba and are leaving plans for another regatta open for modification should the foundation receive approval by mid-March.

According to Vincent Di Pano, Sarasota-Havana Race Committee chairman, the foundation will support a race conducted by the Bone Island Regatta, which will begin May 18 at Sarasota Yacht Club. If the foundation receives approval by next month, it will hold a regatta in which participants will race from Key West to Havana upon completion of the Bone Island Regatta.

“Since we have received some positive signs from the Treasury Department, we are not abandoning all hope to be able to sail to Cuba this year,” Di Pano wrote in an e-mail to the Longboat Observer.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].