Whatever your passion and pretty much wherever you are this Saturday, Summer Sailstice has a way to check off an item on your bucket list, with a bucketload of events scheduled around the world. Locations vary from the downright exotic (Bora Bora, Peru, and Durban, South Africa) to right down the road: most of the celebrations will take place on lakes and bays in the US.

You can use the Crew Connection page to find a ride if you don’t have a boat. You can also rent a boat through Cruzin, a peer-to-peer boat rental marketplace that is a sponsor of Summer Sailstice. If you have your own boat, find an event near you and join in.

While the focus is to celebrate sailing, the event has grown to include something for everyone: barbeques, boat parades, casual races, raft ups, and blessings of the fleet. With cannons thundering at local noon, sailors around the globe will be united by our common love for being on the water.

And if you need any more incentive, you could even win a prize just by showing up. Charter gift certificates, sailing kayaks, official America’s Cup merchandise, boat parts, learn to sail courses, VIP Box Tickets to the Steve Miller Band and Doobie Brothers… any of those could make the rest of your summer more fun, too.

Have fun and see you on the water on June 22!

Planning to join Summer Sailstice 2013? Let us know about it in the comments below.

Veronica Grey is an award-winning author and filmmaker and the recipient of the 2011 New Media award from the Pare Lorentz Film Festival.

I remember the first time I felt it; I was paddling out on my surfboard and noticed a mushy, plastic-like substance sliding through my fingers. That’s what started my obsession with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The patch is located between Hawaii and California in the northern Pacific Ocean, where millions of small bits of plastic have gathered in a vortex of ocean currents known as a gyre.

As someone with experience raising awareness for worthy causes, I paired my professional skills with my personal passion for the ocean, creating the award-winning documentary “Aqua Seafoam Shame,” which spotlights the mess in the ocean that has garnered precious little media attention. (The entire documentary was shot using my iPhone.)

Fifteen years ago The Patch was the size of Texas, but now it’s the size of the continental United States. Plastic in the ocean has far-reaching implications that, if not addressed within 20 years, could change life on this planet. To date, 177 species of sea life are known to ingest plastic; other species feed on those creatures, extending the chain of damage.

People eat the seafood that eats plastic, and the planet gets its rain from the oceans, which are being polluted at an exponential rate. We use significantly more of our planet’s surface as a dump than for growing food; this has to change.

Here are five tips to begin addressing plastics pollution:

1. Americans buy 2 million bottles of water every five minutes; ditch plastic bottles and use glass or recyclable cans.
2. Carry a cost-effective canvas bag instead getting disposable plastic bags at the grocery store. We waste 10 billion plastic bags every week!
3. Don’t line your trash cans with plastic bags. Use paper bags or nothing.
4. Skip the lid on your to-go drinks. The paper cup is normally recyclable but the lid usually isn’t.
5. Remember that each and every time you flush; it all ends up in the ocean. Be mindful of what you toss in your toilet!

Veronica Grey is the director of “Aqua Seafoam Shame,” a critically acclaimed documentary exploring the diagnosis that 25 percent of the planet’s surface is now a landfill due to the Pacific garbage patch and plastics.

Go ahead. Take your best guess at the price tag. (Helicopter not included.)

Also, remember the YachtWorld roundup of the top five James Bond boats? Now Mashable is recommending the Migaloo Private Submersible Yacht as the perfect vessel for Bond villains. A yin for every yang, we suppose.

More Manic Monday Videos:

• Tappin’ n Rollin
• Antigua Sailing Week
• Surfing killer whales
• Jet ski freestyle
• These fish are cray cray

The odometer, at 234,000-plus miles and climbing.

I’d told my parents my plan to find a marketing job at a ski resort and spend every night studying for law school.  The seeds of a steady future to pay off a second mountain of college debt.

But that wasn’t my dream. With hardly any professional experience, I’d determined to work as a Media Crew Member to sail in the next Volvo Ocean Race. I needed to get the attention of an office located in Alicante, Spain, half a world away. The next edition of the race would start in less than two years.

On Halloween night, I’d cornered PUMA skipper, Ken Read, in the back of the Mystic Seaport chapel after a race presentation. He’d graciously traded me his business card for an exit path.  And just after Thanksgiving, he returned a call and offered an email contact in VOR HQ.

It’s all about the first step.

In three months, I never touched one of the LSAT books. Instead, I agonized over the MCM application. When VOR announced the open casting call for Onboard Reporters I decided I had to do something different.  And 70 hours of editing later, I’d finished, for better or worse, a video that was now uploaded to YouTube with zero views, addressed to my mystery man in Alicante.

Sitting alone in the cabin in Vermont, I slipped the Puma card from my wallet and looked at the email address scrawled across the back.  I pictured its recipient as you imagine any stranger tasked with sifting through piles of applications, morning after morning.  Face in palm.  Delete.  Delete.  Delete.

My email read:

My dream obsession is to work for The Volvo Ocean Race.  I’ll never forget watching you, Ken and the crew of Il Mostro sail from Newport for Bermuda alongside Speedboat in June 2008…

And I could just see his response. Delete.

So when I hit send, the email read:

Before you consider checking out my application package, or even finishing this letter, please watch a short video introduction that I made for you.

I had spent five months obsessing over one email and a video.  The response came in two days: Let’s talk.

On March 1st –my birthday- I clocked out for two hours, drove home in two feet of snow, and sat in front of Skype until the computer started ringing.

The chat lasted five minutes.  There was no job offer or any discussion of sailing as an Onboard Reporter.  And for the next month I spent every moment waiting to hear more about one key sentence.

“I’d like to bring you out here for one month as a guest of our TV/Communications team,” he’d said.  “if it makes sense.”

Then the plane tickets arrived. I packed the wagon and headed south.

Sunset, Barcelona: The racing fleet gathers for the first event of the 52 Super Series.

I’ve been told that 90 percent of life is showing up.  And my month in Alicante was over in a heartbeat.  So the day before I was supposed to leave Europe, I pushed my return ticket to the limit of my visa.  I found a bar with wifi, set up shop, and fired out a few pitches to sailing magazines and websites that read:

“Hi. I’m Sam.  I’m here.”

And I created this blog to keep track of whatever happens next.

Shooting the Conde de Godo Trophy winner, Quantum Racing, and the rest of the 52 Super Series fleet.

The Snipe was originally designed in 1931 for a contest in Rudder Magazine. 80+ years later the class is still going strong, with active fleets around the U.S. In South America, it’s the default doublehanded racing dinghy. In Europe, Spain and Italy are the powerhouses, though Scandinavia also boasts several active fleets. And recently fleets in the UK and Menorca have been reestablished, proof that this classic hard-chined sailboat still provides a challenge for sailors of all ages.

The San Francisco Snipe fleet takes a lunch break on a light air day in the 1960s at Crissy Field, just west of St. Francis Yacht Club. Photo courtesy SCIRA

Bill Crosby designed the boat to be built of plywood by the owner. Though many classic wooden Snipes are still sailing, the boats racing today are professionally built of fiberglass out of certified moulds. The tolerances are tight, which minimizes boat speed advantage and makes for great tactical racing. Of course fiberglass also raised the price above what Crosby probably intended, but compared to more recent designs the Snipe is very affordable to own, maintain, and race. The boat must weigh at least 381 pounds rigged and ready to go sailing, and there is a moment of inertia measurement to keep builders from lowering the center of gravity too much. So with no incentive to build light, a boat will remain competitive for many years.

Tight racing at the 2011 Snipe Pan Am Trials in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Photo: John Payne Photography

Each boat can be carried on a small trailer, and many teams choose to double up which saves on expenses and travel time. Most regattas offer camping or home stays, which also saves on expenses. And sails (the biggest expense for most racing sailors) are carefully controlled in an effort to extend their competitive life span.

The boat demands physical and mental ability to compete, and with a range of controls it can be sailed by different weights and combinations. Regular teams include couples, parents and children, friends, and experienced sailors teaching newbies how to crew. The class has even spawned a few romances over the years, including several marriages that are still going strong.

Here’s a great video about the class.

Want to learn more? I’ve included a few links to make it easy. And if you have a favorite Snipe memory (or even a romance that started with this iconic boat), let us know in the comments below.

Why Sail A Snipe

SnipeToday (A Site for All Snipe Sailors)
Snipe US site
Snipe International site

Pan Am Trials photo courtesy John Payne Photography

Sure, the Castaway Skelton in my hands is a bit light for the fishing. But who cares?!

Recently, Castaway Rods sent me a Skelton medium-weight spinning rod to test out during a trip for calico bass in California. But when I arrived at the dock, the guide told me the rod was too light for the one-ounce jig heads we would be fishing with. I smiled, and picked out a half-ounce head. He said “you can’t do that.” I’m guessing you know what my reaction was.

The Skelton, a seven-foot one-piece multi-modulus graphite rod with a cork split-grip and Alconite guides, felt good in my hands. I had no intention of putting it down. So I tied on that “too light” jig head, threaded a root-beer colored swim-bait onto the hook, and proceeded to catch more fish than anyone else onboard that day.

Now, if I’d caught half as many fish as everyone else I’d still have been perfectly happy. Truth be told, I chalk up my high catch-rate that day to nothing but pure, dumb luck. But the important thing is, I wanted to fish with a lighter rod than the norm, I did so, and I had fun doing it. Here are a few other ways to fish that go against the grain—but are guaranteed to make you smile.

* Forget about the standard-issue chum bag. Instead, disburse your chum chunks with a potato gun (here’s how to make your own).

* The next time you spot a trigger-fish hiding under some flotsam, creep in and try to free-gaff it. Some may say this isn’t sporting, but it’s actually a lot tougher than getting them to take a bait—and a lot more fun.

* Use a hot dog for a stick-bait. It actually works quite well (until the first strike, anyway) and it never fails to get everyone onboard hooting and hollering.

Want to check out some other unusual ways of having fun on your boat? See 7 Wacky Ways to Have Fun on a Boat: Don’t Tell Mom, and Go Fast Boats Events of the Season: Five Summer Stunners.

“It was like a moment of silence and then all of the sudden it just went crazy…We’re looking at each other like, we have to control this fish because he’s coming down the side of the gunnel, where we need to be.”

Apparently the men struggled for two hours with the Mako before it gave up. You can watch a longer version of the video here.

What would you have done?

More how-to:

• Change an outboard engine water pump impeller
• Use a VHF radio
• Apply Kiwi Grip NonSkid paint to a boat deck
• Change engine oil on a four-stroke outboard
• Change the thermostat on an outboard engine

What are your tips for painting a boat? Let us know in the comments section.

The new Mercury engine testing facility will be used for both outboard and stern drive engines.

Mercury told me recently that the new area, which covers a total of 27,700 square feet on two levels, will incorporate indoor test tanks larger than those it currently has in operation, each with a water capacity of 10,000 gallons.

Several years ago I had a chance to tour the current PD&E shop and see indoor test cells like these in action. Each is completely enclosed, and Mercury can adjust water temperature, air temperature, and humidity inside the cell to simulate environmental conditions ranging from a rain forest to the arctic. The duty cycles of the engines in the cell are computer-controlled and can go on 24 hours a day, with data collected non-stop and available to engineers at their desks.The new cells will be able to handle more-powerful engines, and feature the latest advances in computer simulation.

It’s all part of an investment Mercury is making in its future as it anticipates the economy beginning to rebound. In the past 12 months Mercury has also hired 70 new engineers. Some of those new hires have manufacturing expertise and are filling out staff as the company completes the transition of its MerCruiser sterndrive operations from Stillwater, Oklahoma, to Fond du Lac. A second, 24,200 square foot construction project is underway to accommodate MerCruiser production.

I’ve been promised a tour of the PD&E area when it’s complete, after which I hope to deliver a report on what’s inside. Check back on the boats.com blog for updates, or visit Mercury Marine for more information.

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