Sarasota youth sailing group seeks funding, approvals for $4.1M project

Looking north while crossing the Ringling Bridge toward St. Armands, just outside downtown Sarasota, is often a familiar sight: dozens of tiny sailing dinghies just off the shore of City Island. 

They are the training boats Sarasota Youth Sailing uses to teach young captains how to tack, jibe and safely navigate open waters in the protected environment of Sarasota Bay, just as the youth program of the Sarasota Sailing Squadron has done since the late 1970s since its founding by the Luffing Lassies, the squadron’s women’s sailing group.