RYA North East OnBoard Festival at Tynemouth Sailing Club
by Liz King 1 Nov 2012 11:35 GMT
23 October 2012
RYA North East OnBoard Festival © Liz King
Young sailors from schools around the Tyneside region gathered together at Tynemouth Sailing Club over the half term holidays to take part in the RYA North East OnBoard Festival.
The OnBoard programme is the RYA's grass roots scheme which introduces youngsters to sailing and windsurfing through schools, youth groups and sailing clubs and training centres.
30 youngsters took part in the RYA North East OnBoard Festival, with ages ranging around 13 to 15 years and the schools taking part included Newcastle School for Boys, The Kings School (Tynemouth), Burnside Business and Enterprise College (Wallsend) and Longbenton Community College.
"The event was a great success and a really nice way to finish off the sailing season for these young sailors," said Helen Bainbridge, RYA OnBoard Development Officer for the North East.
"It was a great fun out on the water, all the young people that took part were enthusiastic, competitive, and displayed their fine sailing skills. There was some fantastic teamwork going on as well as a lot of fun. My thanks must go to all the club volunteers, parents and teachers across the region for their support for the RYA OnBoard programme throughout 2012."
At the festival the young sailors completed a series of tasks and races, including relay races, Triathlon and egg and spoon races, with the winners gaining points for themselves and for their team.
At the end of a fun day the team winners were the Burnside and Kings Combined Team, consisting of:
Callum Doyle (Burnside) 14
Hannah Armstrong (Burnside) 14
Adam Thompson (Kings) 16
James Thompson (Kings) 16
Matthew Gardener (Kings) 15
Daniel Urwin (Kings) 14
Special prizes also went out to:
Most Capsizes throughout the day! - Stanley Winterman 13 (Longbenton)
Effort and sailing skills! - Hannah Armstrong 14 (Burnside)
Expertly recovering from near capsize!! - George Binfield 13 (Longbenton)
Honesty- not bending the rules quite as much as everyone else! - James Thompson 16 (Burnside)
"It was a fantastic sailing experience," said 16 year old Joshua Kandola from the Newcastle School for Boys after the event. "It was great fun and I would love to do it again!"
Helen continued: "2012 has been an excellent year for youth sailing in the North East. It has been great to see so many young people enjoying themselves out on the water at a range of locations. Each OnBoard partner club and centre has been working hard to offer taster sessions, training courses and regular club sessions to enable youngsters to access sailing and windsurfing. Without OnBoard many of these youngsters would never have had the chance to try these exciting sports. Across Yorkshire and the North East over 2300 first experience sessions have been run this year, with 180 young people going on to join clubs and become regular sailors. It has been great to see new school groups and sailing clubs taking part in the scheme, and we have all enjoyed the fantastic London 2012 inspired events that have taken place during the year."
Run by the RYA, OnBoard is a grass roots programme which introduces sailing and windsurfing to young people aged 8 to 18, through schools, youth groups and training centres.
Over a ten year period OnBoard aims to introduce a minimum of 500,000 children to sailing and windsurfing in the UK, converting over 10% of them into regular participants. So far it's nicely on track.
For more information about how to get involved in sailing visit the RYA's website www.rya.org.uk or the OnBoard website www.ruob.co.uk