Most sailors don’t need an excuse to get out on the water, but the longest day of the year is as good as any.

Sailors from the Northwest and around the world will be casting off the lines Saturday and Sunday to take part in Summer Sailstice, a global celebration of sailing held during the summer solstice. From Canada to China, Nicaragua to the Netherlands, an estimated 12,000 sailors from all 50 U.S. states and 20 countries will be hitting the water.

Sailstice founder John Arndt said the simplicity of sailing is particularly appealing in these tough economic times. “This year, people want to unplug and get away from it all,” Arndt said recently. “We expect record participation in Sailstice 2009. Sailstice helps everyone focus on simple, low-cost ways to enjoy sailing.”

Sailstice events range from regattas to raft-ups, lobster bakes to treasure hunts. Some sailors race, while others kick back in quiet bays. Still others island hop and circumnavigate. They go out in tall ships and multihulls, on kite boards and ketches. If it floats and is wind-powered, it’s in.

Sailors participating in the half dozen or so events in Washington state are holding rendezvous, getting together for potlucks and barbecues and going out for evening sails.

Windworks Sailing Club, based at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle, is throwing a party on Saturday including daysails, a Catalina 25 regatta and an afternoon barbecue and beer garden at the dock. Ten percent of proceeds from the day will go to the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association.

Windworks CEO Greg Norwine said the club has traditionally thrown a party to kick off summer, and decided last year to make it a Sailstice celebration.

“It’s a national and international event, so it just gave us one more reason to have a party,” he said.

Windworks Sailing Club members celebrate the longest day of the year during the club's 2008's Summer Sailstice event.

The club’s inaugural Summer Sailstice event drew about 200 people, Norwine said, despite competing with the naked bicyclists participating in Seattle’s famous Fremont Summer Solstice Parade a few miles away.

Summer Sailstice participants can enter contests to win prizes including backpacks, books, binoculars and a weeklong Moorings charter in the British Virgin Islands. Prizes will be awarded for the best Summer Sailstice stories and photos, the biggest Summer Sailstice event, the largest crew, the longest distance sailed and the biggest fish caught.

This year, Summer Sailstice organizers are teaming up with Around the Americas, a circumnavigation of the Western Hemisphere that left from Seattle May 31. The project—a collaboration between Pacific Science Center, the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Sailors for the Sea, a Boston-based environmental nonprofit—aims to increase awareness about ocean health.

Organizers have set a goal for Summer Sailstice participants to sail a combined 25,000 miles, equivalent to a circumnavigation of North and South America, and are encouraging sailors to pledge money for every mile sailed and donate funds raised to Sailors for the Sea.

A lifelong sailor whose parents taught him to sail in small boats on the coast of Maine, Arndt started Summer Sailstice in 2001. About a year earlier, Arndt was at a meeting focused on the various problems impacting sailing—dwindling racing fleets, once beautiful boats falling into disrepair and a generation of kids too plugged in to computers and video games to appreciate being on the water.

Arndt, advertising manager for Latitude 38 sailing magazine, recalled a quote from writer and radio newscaster Wes “Scoop” Nisker, who once famously said, “If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.” With the help of friend and fellow sailor Michelle Slade, Arndt launched Summer Sailstice in February 2001. The first events were held that summer, with about 200 boats signing up. The annual fete now draws more than 2,000 boats.

For Norwine, the appeal of the annual event lies in knowing that kindred spirits far and wide are joining in the celebration.

“You feel like you’re connected to the bigger sailing community, because people are doing it all over the country and the world,” he said. “They’ve chosen this time to really enjoy sailing, get out and use their boats and celebrate the longest day.

“It’s neat. There’s really nothing else like it on the sailing calendar.”