12th Annual Summer Sailstice arrives June 23rd, 2012 – Celebrate Sailing Wherever You Sail!
You can be a part of the biggest sailing event on the planet!
From Shanghai to San Francisco sailors around the world will celebrate the 12th annual Summer Sailstice on the weekend of June 23rd, 2012. Traditionally held the weekend closest to the summer solstice, this global celebration of sailing invites all sailors to sail ‘together’ regardless of where or what they sail. To participate is easy, sailors sign up at www.summersailstice.com and go sailing!
Summer Sailstice is the global sailing holiday celebrated on the weekend closest to the summer solstice. This international event was founded in 2001 to connect the global sailing community in a fun, creative, multifaceted, multi-location sailing holiday. Every year, Summer Sailstice connects over 17,000 sailors all over the world—cruisers, racers and recreational—to celebrate and showcase life under sail. It has expanded to include participants from Asia, across the Americas and Europe.
In 2012, for the third consecutive year, Summer Sailstice will again commit to Sailors for the Sea in support of healthy oceans. Summer Sailstice sailors help by pledging funds like 2004 Olympian Carol Cronin who, in 2011, pledged $10/mile sailed on the Sailstice. As Carol described her sail, “According to our MotionX track, we sailed a total of 5.37 miles—without straying much more than a mile from the mooring. So in order to keep another promise I donated $53.70 to Sailors for the Sea.”
Dan Pingaro, Executive Director of Sailors for the Sea added, “Summer Sailstice is a wonderful event to broaden support for sailing and help raise awareness of the environment. Sailors for the Sea is pleased to join Summer Sailstice in supporting ocean health and we truly appreciate the support of the sailing community. Our Clean Regattas program allows us to connect with sailors throughout the world all year long. We’re looking forward to connecting with more sailors in 2012!”
By signing up for free, sailors become eligible to win fabulous prizes. The 2011 grand prize, a BVI charter contributed by Footloose Sailing Charters, was won by Carleen Southard of ‘Moana’, a Catalina 28 sailing out of Oceanside, CA. She and her husband, Darwin, are headed out for their Footloose BVI vacation in April! Other prize winners have won Hobie kayaks, winch handles, sailing gear from West Marine and numerous other prizes available to all sailors signed up and sailing on Summer Sailstice.
“I want to give all sailors, from the America’s Cup to bluewater cruisers to daysailors on the local lake the opportunity to celebrate together and showcase everything sailing has to offer,” says founder John Arndt.
At www.summersailstice.com sailors can sign up for free then create Sailstice events, recruit crew, post stories, win prizes and learn about other sailing events being organized in their area. For more information, please visit their website or contact john@summersailstice.com.
Go sailing and give back to the community by getting involved with organizations such as Spirit of the Sea
64' Ocean Watch. Courtesy of spiritofthesea.org.
Oakland-based Spirit of the Sea founder and Executive Director, Captain Richard Gillette, has been selected as a winner of this year’s Jefferson Award for his work with children in the SF Bay area. Here’s a great opportunity to get involved, go sailing and help disadvantaged youth in the Bay Area.
“Our mission,” says Gillette, “is to bring the spirit of the sea to youth with hands-on experiences aboard a sailing vessel in order to educate and inspire new awareness, perspectives, and initiative regarding the oceans, the environment, their communities, and themselves.
To achieve their goal of providing a meaningful marine experience to every middle- and high-school-aged youth in the San Francisco Bay area, Gillette has enlisted the 64-foot sailing vessel Ocean Watch so that they can provide services at no cost to those who are at risk, disadvantaged, suffering illness, or who would uniquely benefit from or otherwise not have an opportunity to sail. The vessel was just splashed in the Alameda Estuary at Jack London Square in Oakland, California.
“We will also be working with the scientific community to design and implement experiences that will teach and inspire our participants. We will do things like- plankton pulls and then view the life in the water through microscopes, do saline tests where we look at the saline content of different parts of the Bay and during tidal shifts. We will do turbidity testing to show how different organisms and tides affect the clarity of the water,” Gillette says.
For more information, visit spiritofthesea.org,or Email: CaptainRichard@spiritofthesea.org
Tel: 510-478-4600
Your Cruising Editor 