Every two years (since the late 80's) there's been a race for two handed offshore cruisers and racers that focusses on not just the sailing but the social too.
It was originally created by the editor of a British magazine, who decided to create something short enough for most people to be able to take holiday for (2 weeks) and challenging enough to encourage people to take part in offshore racing but social enough to encourage first time cruiser/racers.
It's called the triangle race and I've taken part in it for the past 3 editions. I initially covered it purely for the media and magazine feature, but I was so frustrated by the lack of female skippers that I decided that I would encourage more to take part.

For the past two editions my boat has had the only all female entry, (there's just two people on board) out of 30-35 entries. This year we had 5 women taking part alongside 55 men. We had entries from UK, Ireland and Australia. Previously we've had entries from France, Netherlands and other European countries.

The race goes from Torquay (UK) to Kinsale (Ireland) to Treguier (France) then back to Torquay. at each stopover there's a bit of a social party.

I write about the event via my blog, but as usual, it's written in slightly fun or humourous, self deprecating way. (I'm not linked to the organisers or have any kind of clandestine reason to promote this, other than I love the event)

you can read about this years event via the three links below, each link is simply a blog post about each leg of the event.
What I'd love to do is encourage more people to take part, whether that's by chartering a boat or possibly if someone has their boat already in these waters. 2018 will be the next event... so there's plenty of time yet.

I'm also just putting together an information blog about how to deal with diesel bug in your fuel tank which I'm just finishing at the moment. I recently had to deal with this, which was stirred up by a bit of choppy weather on the first leg, I can copy the info here if anyone is interested... anyway, I hope I can persuade some more Aussies to take part in future events. :-) Thanks for looking and reading - Jayne

leg 1
www.boogie-nights.org/2016/07/kinsale-yes-we-can.html
leg 2
www.boogie-nights.org/2016/07/tres-gruyere-bound.html
leg 3
www.boogie-nights.org/2016/08/defeat-deelbows-and-dediesel.html

McNaughtical said...
That would be awesome... who knows one day I might

*shrugs* why not start our own one here in Australia? Okay for us it would be more coastal with less offshore (stand fast Lord Howe Island) but could still be fun.

TheMisfit said..
If you set up the equivalent over there, then can I be invited?

Just for you and Boogie nights