Hope For Cuba Foundation

Captain Phineas Sprague, Jr. Founder and President of Portland Yacht Services and Ocean Passages

WASHINGTON, DC, USA, February 5, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Hope for Cuba Foundation (HFC) announces that Captain Phines Sprague Jr., Founder and President of Portland Yacht Services (PYS) Portland Ship Yard and owner of The Sail Training Vessel Harvey Gamage, has joined other luminaries in becoming a member of the HFC Advisory Council.

PYS, a full-service boatyard and commercial shipyard based in Portland Maine, was founded in 1981 by circumnavigators, Joanna and Captain Phineas Sprague Jr. PYS offers a full spectrum of services for motor or sailing vessels led by a passionate team with over a thousand years of experience in sea education, ship operations and marine repair. As the yard grew, Sprague’s avocation has been establishing non-profits on historic preservation, ecology, sail training, rowing, community sailing and Maine focused economic development missions. In 2015, Sprague formed Ocean Passages to offer world-class sailing education in Cuba’s marine environment on board this sail training schooner Harvey Gamage. Integrating his marine exerience and a deep interest in improving U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba allows Ocean Passages to use traditional tall Ships as platforms for a wide range of collaborative experiential education and STEM programs that also fosters international understanding to constructively engage with the people of Cuba. He is a geologist, has an MBA and is a Certified Port Executive so the programs contemplated are focused upon science, value added and sustainable models.

“All of our prestigious members of our Advisory Council bring a unique set of skills that support the Foundation in many critical ways. Working alongside Portland Yacht Services and Captain Sprague Jr., Hope For Cuba will be supporting some very exciting initiatives in the maritime educational and environmental preservation arena. Together we will be able to accomplish our common goals in helping the Cuban people with our maritime and food programs,” said HFC Founder and President, Jorge Ignacio Fernandez.

“I am truly thrilled to start 2024 having discovered this powerful alignment of interest and am humbled to be asked to join as an Advisory Council member,” said Captain Phineas Sprague Jr. He went on to say, “One of the key maritime projects that we will be launching is a pilot community sailing program in Cuba aimed to engage the next generation of Cubans with the ocean, marine ecosytem and related economy . The Bravo eco-friendly mooring systems designed collaboratively several years ago will be installed in the sensitive marine areas around Cuba. These moorings are necessary for vessels like the Harvey Gamage to revisit these areas for scientific investigations, educational and recreational diving with out damaging them. Hope for Cuba’s quick understanding and embracing these programs as the details are worked out will help ensure a better plan, rapid adoption and the resources for additional projects. We will work together for a better future.”

Mr. Fernandez and Captain Sprague will be traveling to Cuba together in early 2024 to lay the groundwork necessary to execute some of these notable programs. Cuba Ambassador, Lianys Torres Rivera will be visiting Portland Yacht Services’ facilities in early February. To learn more about this an other HFC supported programs, please reach out to info@hopeforcuba.net.

About Hope For Cuba Foundation:
Hope For Cuba is a non-profit humanitarian organization. Its key purpose includes providing humanitarian aid to the Cuban people, conducting humanitarian projects related to health and medical matters, promoting entrepreneurship and business opportunities, expanding cultural exchanges, encouraging scientific research collaborations, and supporting a path to achieving full normalization of relations.

You can learn more about HFC, sponsor a water filter station in your name, donate to Food for Cuba or other projects by visiting www.hopeforCuba.org

Dan Argenas
Hope for Cuba Foundation
+1 2029682121
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