OnBoard Festival at Sutton Bingham Sailing Club

Bug football during the OnBoard Festival at Sutton Bingham © Susie Nation-Grainger

Local youngsters stay upright in fun day afloat

Despite gusty wind conditions, 66 youngsters enjoyed a fun yet competitive day on the water without too many capsizes at Sutton Bingham Sailing Club when they competed in the annual OnBoard Festival on 28th August.

The sailing festival attracted young competitors who have learnt to sail through RYA OnBoard clubs across Dorset and gave them a chance to put their new sailing skills to the test.

Helped out by 15 volunteers the keen youngsters, aged from 5 to 15 years old, are all members of OnBoard Clubs in the region, coming from SailLaser OnBoard Club, Weymouth Outdoor Education Centre OnBoard Club, Lyme Regis Sea School, Weymouth SC and Sutton Bingham SC, to take part in what was the inter-club event for the area.

The young sailors were formed into teams from each of the OnBoard clubs to get a good mix of sailors. Teams got stuck into a number of fun challenges which included relay races, ball pick up, Bug football and treasure hunts. Although everyone was a winner for taking part, the overall victory of the event went to the Red team led by team captain Alex Talbot.

Alongside the team games there were improvers’ sail sessions (the Silver fleet) where the sailors sailed Bug and Optimist class dinghies. The groups then came together to complete the grand treasure hunt to finish the day. Prizes were given to the sailors along with goody bags kindly provided by LaserPerformance and OB gifts.

“We loved sailing together and joining in with the games,” said May Wood and Ellen Anning, both aged 10 and from Seaton.” We ended up going around in circles with the gusty winds but it didn’t matter. The Festival was great fun.”

OnBoard event organiser Tony Wood summed up the event. “The OnBoard Fun Festival lived up to its name and was really fun,” he said. “I thought everybody sailed brilliantly and fully entered into the spirit of the festival. Many thanks to Sutton Bingham SC and particularly Mark Talbot, LaserPerformance and all the volunteers who supported the Festival. This is the third year this Festival has run and it just keeps getting better.”

Thanks to LaserPerformace for supporting the festival and providing 3O BUGs and goody bags for each competitor.

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 or the OnBoard website.