Tampa Bay · Venice
Founded 1973. Volunteer-run club of about ninety memberships and no clubhouse. Saturday buoy and distance racing off Venice and Nokomis, October to May, Gulf-coast cruises, and the Windjammer and Sharks Tooth regattas organized with Venice Yacht Club. Boat ownership optional.
Two-day regatta off Venice, co-hosted by the Venice Sailing Squadron and Venice Yacht Club.
Weekly buoy races and a series of regattas off Venice and Nokomis. Skippers' meetings at 10 am on race day at Higel Marine Park, where crew looking for a ride are matched with boats.
The Squadron's own January 1 race off Venice.
The Squadron owns no real estate, and says so as a point of pride: the overhead stays low, the boats live in their owners’ slips along the Intracoastal, skippers’ meetings happen at Higel Marine Park on race mornings, and the monthly potluck meeting, second Wednesday from October to April, meets at Harbor Lights. A group of Venice sailors organized it in 1973 to promote sailing, seamanship and navigation, and it now numbers nearly ninety memberships, all of it volunteer-run.
Racing is most Saturdays from October to May: weekly buoy races plus a series of regattas off Venice and Nokomis in the Gulf, sailed under a Notice of Series the club posts each September. The club says the races are “not just for avid racers,” and it means it; a skipper who wants to try an afternoon of racing can ask for crew to help sail the course and explain the rules, and a sailor without a boat who turns up at the 10 am skippers’ meeting will be matched with one where possible. The Squadron is a member of the Sarasota Bay Yachting Association and, with Venice Yacht Club, the organizing authority for the Windjammer and the Sharks Tooth Cup, two regional regattas sailed in support of local youth sailing. New Year’s Day brings the Fly Boy.
The cruising side runs about four cruises a season to Gulf-coast ports, two to ten days or more each, with the ICW as the protected road and the passes as the door to the Gulf, and in recent seasons the club has organized Bahamas cruises and bareboat trips in the Caribbean. The About page keeps the racers-versus-cruisers rivalry alive in print: “The racers doubt that a cruiser knows how to properly trim a sail. The cruisers question the racers’ ability to relax.”
Membership is open to anyone with an interest in sailing, boat or no boat, and the club is candid that some members are former sailors who now run powerboats. It offers no instruction (the Public FAQ says so plainly and points beginners to the Venice Youth Boating Association), so the way to learn here is a crew spot and a patient owner. The season ends in May with the Change of Watch picnic, the awards, and the raingutter boat regatta.
Venice Sailing Squadron is open to the public: no member sponsorship required to take part. Class schedules, program fees, and any membership or annual-pass options are posted on its website.
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