After an 18-month restoration to an impressively high standard, Bluebottle, the Duke of Edinburgh’s boat, is racing again for the first time in 60 years. Even better, the boat won the class in Cowes Week, her first regatta, in the hands of Graham and Julia Bailey, with Cowes boatbuilder David Heritage as crew. She then went on to take 3rd place at the Edinburgh Cup, the Dragon’s UK National Championship.

Bluebottle was originally a wedding gift to then Princess Elizabeth and Duke of Edinburgh from the members of the Island Sailing Club in Cowes. She was built in 1947 by Camper & Nicholsons in Gosport and the Duke raced her with family, including Prince Charles and Princess Anne, as well as with esteemed local designer Uffa Fox.

He also loaned the boat to a number of sailors, including to the British sailing team for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, where she won a bronze medal, sailed by Graham Mann, Ronald Backus and Jonathan Janson. She was later used as a sail training boat at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth for 40 years.

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A movie night celebrating female surfers will come to Warrawong's Gala Cinema on Saturday December 4. The She Surfs Film Tour will screen collection of short films s across two hours telling inspirational, heart-warming and entertaining stories from independent filmmakers around the globe. Read more: Hop between venues for hours of live music in Thirroul Organisers said via their aim was to connect like-minded women and "build a community of supportive wave riding women", according to their website. "By showcasing and celebrating the female surfers we hope to make women in surfing more visible," they said, adding the festival was for everyone who loved surfing, young, old, men, women, boys and girls. Read more: Cocktail bar with Indian tapas finally opens in Wollongong The unique selection of films of vary in lengths and styles covering topics relevant to women in surfing. Tickets are available via: events.humanitix.com The Illawarra Mercury newsroom is funded by our readers. You can subscribe to support our journalism here.

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Rudyard Kipling famously wrote that the complete person can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. Most books of the sea end with some sort of triumph, be it a gentle circumnavigation or a race well won. Andrew Halcrow’s Into the Southern Ocean is cut from a different cloth.

Having already sailed around the world through the tropics in his engineless, self-built yacht Elsi Arrub, he felt the need for harsher challenges and set out in 2006 to cross the Southern Ocean single-handed, navigating entirely by sextant.

Having been foiled by a medical emergency, he vowed to do it again, from east to west against the prevailing wind.

In 2013, a dismasting cut short this effort, but the book this Shetland islander wrote about his great voyage is stirring stuff.