New Paltz Regatta will not be held in ’21

There will not be a regatta on the Wallkill River this year, the second in a row that’s been sunk by the pandemic. Since that decision was made, new federal guidance lifts requirements to maintain social distance among fully vaccinated people out of doors, but it’s unclear that this news would have altered the 2021 regatta’s fate. State rules in New York tend to lag behind the federal guidelines and there’s also no mandated way to verify the vaccination status of a particular individual. Deputy mayor KT Tobin pointed out, though, that this is not the first break in the regatta’s decades-long history. The first regatta was held in 1955, according to organizers of the 2019 event.