Bart's Bash, Philippine Hobie Challenge, VOR in the blocks

by Guy Nowell, Asia Editor on 24 Sep 2014 The inaugural Bart’s Bash – the memorial regatta for Andrew Simpson – has been and gone, and with only 18% of the accumulated data having been processed the event has already staked its claim in the Guinness Book of Records as ‘the World’s Largest Regatta’. 3,600 boats and 10,000km of aggregate racing, and there is still a great deal of counting to go. Organisers received entries from 18,000 sailors in 68 countries. If you have no idea what this is all about, go to http://www.bartsbash.co.uk/ and find out more. And while you’re there, make a donation.

Every year PHINSAF, the Phillippines Inter-Island Sailing Federation, organises the Philippine Hobie Challenge. This is a ‘raid’ event, where the fleet (and the racing) moves from place to place every day, camping overnight or sometimes staying in resorts. Next year’s event takes place 14-22 March, and if you like warm water, good breeze, jewel-like tropical islands, cold beer and good company, and have a sense of adventure, then click here: http://15thphilippinehobiechallenge.wordpress.com/ Even better, the Hobie Challenge operates an outreach programme, helping to shift educational supplies and other ‘stuff’ into some of the most remote parts of the Philippines. One for the Bucket List, no?

The 2014-14 Volvo Ocean Race starts with in-port racing in Alicante on 04 October. If you are within ‘hola!’ distance, get on down there. The quality of media coming off the boats is already better than ever – the boats participating in the Sevenstar Round Britain Race demonstrated that. The potential closeness of racing One Design 65-footers around the world is undoubted. They keep telling us that with OD 'it’s the crew that counts' but we knew that, right. What also counts is that the boats stay in one piece. After a major thrashing all the way round the British Isles, Azzam/Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing reported one breakage only – a bunk strut. 'If we’d done that race on one of the last-generation 70s we’d have spent the next month on the repair shop,' remarked an Azzam team member.

Slightly shorter than the VOR, but no less a classic, the Rolex Middle Sea Race takes off from Valetta’s Grand Harbour, in Malta, on 18 October. It’s almost worth being in it just for the start, sailing out from under the ramparts of the citadel, but the rest of the race is spectacular as well – along the south coast of Sicily, through the Straits of Messina (less than 2nm wide at the narrowest point), around Stromboli, the 'Lighthouse of the Mediterranean', and then Lampedusa and Pantelleria. A circular course, challenging all the way, and definitely another one for the Bucket List.