More than 200 young sailors are gearing up to battle it out on the high seas in the Keys’ biggest sailing regatta this weekend.
The Mark Sorensen Youth Sailing Program’s Buccaneer Blast will take place at the Upper Keys Sailing Club in Key Largo and Founders Park in Islamorada. With competing sailors from as far away as Bermuda, Mexico, the Philippines and all points north in the U.S., the local team is looking to bring home some booty.
More than 80 volunteers from the Upper Keys Sailing Club come together to help run the Florida Keys regatta, which boasts prizes suited to the competing age groups. With pirate heads, ships in a bottle and enough pieces of eight to go around, local residents and visitors can see this happy bunch of buccaneers sailing off Founders Park Saturday, Feb. 3 and Sunday, Feb. 4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“Sailing is a sport that can literally last a lifetime,” said Dominic Marsden, director for the Mark Sorensen Sailing program who began sailing at age 11. “Unlike most ball sports, here’s a sport in which you never stop learning. Living on this chain of islands, surrounded by water and super weather, we should be among the best sailors in the world. You just never know where the next Olympian is coming from.”
