BlooSee is proud to support a great sailing event open to anyone with access to any kind of sailboat, anywhere:  the annual Summer Sailstice, held worldwide the weekend closest to the Summer solstice, which this years is June 18-19.

We encourage all sailors on BlooSee to sign up here.

Additionally, we request that you join the Summer Sailstice group on BlooSee, and tag the marina you are sailing from with the word “saisltice” (click on the marina infopoint on BlooSee, choose Edit/Update, enter Sailstic in the tag filed, save).

To find out more about this extraordinary event, we interviewed its founder, John Arndt.

BlooSee: Tells us a bit about yourself

John Arndt: I grew up sailing with my family on the coast of Maine.  Since then I’ve cruised, raced and sailed recreationally in many parts of the world though the last 20 years primarily with my family on San Francisco Bay.  We currently own a Ranger 33 named ‘Summer Sailstice’.  For the past 25 years sailing has been both vocation and avocation as I’ve worked at Latitude 38, a US West Coast sailing magazine published since 1977, where I’m associate publisher.   I’ve been on the board of directors of the Northern California Marine Association and the board of Sail America.  I currently serve as president of  GoSailingSF which is focused on uniting the Bay Area sailing community on growing participation in sailing.  And, of course, I’ve been running Summer Sailstice.

What is Summer Sailstice?

John Arndt: Summer Sailstice is an international sailing holiday uniting sailors around the world in a shared celebration of sailing on the weekend closest to the summer solstice – this year June 18/19.  2011 is the 11th annual event and last year we had over 4600 boats in 47 countries and all 50 US states participating.

Wether your sailing Hobie’s off the beach or doing tall-ship training for youth, or racing offshore to Bermuda the common bond of enjoying life under sail is all celebrated together – wherever and however that is!

As a bonus, everyone signing up has a chance to win prizes supplied by sailing companies. Of course they want more peopleenjoying more sailing so they contribute goodies for sailors.  The grand prize is a $5000 gift certificate towards a BVI charter with Footloose Sailing Charters and there over 400 other prizes!

John Arndt

What are the most peculiar entries this year (far away places, interesting human stories, etc)?

John Arndt: Every year there’s something new and one thing I’d never thought of was ‘virtual sailing’. This year we have a big, online ‘rally’ that’s been created in Second Life, a virtual online world where everyone sails in the digital space.  Who’d have thought?

We’ve had folks signed up in Japan, China and all across the world though I often like just seeing the pictures of people who are getting together somewhere to raft up and celebrate sailing.  It’s sailing in places like North Dakota where they have a huge reservoir and there more sailboats than I would ever have imagined.  Take a look at this raft up last year, or this group in China that has made sure they start their Sailstice sail before sunrise.

This year Lake Mead Nevada has four clubs getting together to expand the event they held last year;  and Milwaukee Bay has four clubs doing the same for the second year in a row.

And there were those who were in Tahiti in 2010 who enjoyed Sailstice South of the equator.

Ideally there will come a day when Summer Sailstice is recognized and celebrated by all sailors worldwide.  Actually, it will happen twice a year – once in the Northern Hemisphere where most of the world’s sailors live and once in the Southern Hemisphere where most of the world’s water is!

There are so many sailors with more great ideas on how to participate, connect and grow a sailing holiday and I hope I can somehow find a way to build it into the website so it becomes a constantly improving tool to help everyone coordinate a global celebration.

Thank you so much John! It’s a pleasure to support this wonderful event.

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