Two of Britain's most decorated female sailors will be teaming up for the upcoming 2022 Double Handed Offshore Season. Dee Caffari and Shirley Robertson will be sailing together throughout 2022 in the UK Double Handed Offshore Series, racing a new Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300 supplied by SeaVentures UK. The pair will be racing in seven offshore races throughout 2022 culminating in the gruelling 1,805nm Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race.

One of the sport's most accomplished offshore sailors, Dee Caffari boasts a remarkable career that includes six laps of the planet, three of them solo. A maiden solo circumnavigation against the winds and tides, a sixth-place finish in the legendary Vendee Globe, and a double-handed circumnavigation in the Barcelona World Race have gone to make Dee the only woman ever to have sailed non-stop around the planet three times. Caffari has also twice completed the Volvo Ocean Race, in 2014/15 onboard 'Team SCA' and then in 2017/18 as skipper onboard 'Turn the Tide on Plastic'.

"Robertson and Caffari will be sailing in a newly delivered Sun Fast 3300"

Joining Caffari is one of the sport's most successful Olympic female sailors of all time, Double Olympic Gold medallist Shirley Robertson. With gold-medal wins in Sydney and Athens, Robertson was the first woman to helm a multihull on the groundbreaking Extreme Sailing Series, the forerunner to today's big stadium racing circuits, and is a regular on the superyacht racing circuit. In parallel to her sailing feats, Robertson has also forged a successful media career, presenting CNN's flagship monthly documentary series "CNN Mainsail" for over a decade. She is the face of Olympic sailing coverage for the BBC and played a key presenting role in coverage of the 36th America's Cup from Auckland, New Zealand. 

Robertson and Caffari will be sailing in a newly delivered Sun Fast 3300, the boat both sailors raced throughout last season's offshore series. The 3300 is one of the go to race yachts of the growing double-handed scene and will be provided by Nigel De Q Colley's Sea Ventures UK.

In the latest editions of her new podcast series, double Olympic gold medalist Shirley Robertson sits down for a two-part chat with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, founder of the Clipper Race and the first man ever to sail solo non-stop around the planet.

Part one delves into the background of Sir Robin’s groundbreaking voyage in his 32ft ketch Suhaili — the only boat to finish the Golden Globe Race in April 1969 after 32,000 miles around the Earth.

And it certainly wasn’t an easy trip for Sir Robin, who ran constant repairs on his vessel as it took the brunt of brutal Southern Ocean storms — and then disappeared from view on the return leg of his passage when his radio gave up.

In part two he talks about life after the Golden Globe, which involved further adventures at sea on the Whitbread Round the World Race and Jules Verne Trophy, and eventually starting his own global yachting challenge.

Says Sir Robin: “When I look at all the lives that have benefitted from the Clipper, and the number of those sailors, 40% of them have never been on a boat before, who have taken up sailing subsequently as their sport, to my mind that is going to rank pretty highly because there's over five thousand people now that have taken the sport up all over the world.”

Shirley Robertson’s Sailing Podcast is available on most popular podcasting outlets such as iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts, and can also be streamed at www.shirleyrobertson.com/podcast