Lots of happy faces at RYA Kent OnBoard Festival 

Youngsters take to the water at RYA Kent OnBoard Festival

The RYA Kent OnBoard Festival, organised as a celebrational fun event for youngsters who had learnt to sail at OnBoard clubs and centres in Kent this year, took place on Saturday 24 September at Dover Watersports Centre.  

Blessed with ideal weather conditions, sunny F1-2, the festival proved to be a success for everyone involved and there were smiley faces all round.  

 In the morning the youngsters were on the water taking part in some fun activities and basic racing, including standing up sailing, capsize competition and ball and peg collecting.

After lunch the group split in two and everybody had a chance to learn the basics of windsurfing and try and beat Kent’s very own Fast Lap Challenge .

 Sailors had to run down the beach, launch their Bug, sail or paddle -subject to the wind-  the boat around a simple course, drag their Bug back up the beach and then sprint back to the finish.

The youngsters also had a go at windsurfing and by the end of the day were all delighted to be able to get up on the board.  

A total of eighteen young sailors aged 8-14 were taking part and represented clubs from all over the county including Redoubt SC, Waterloo Pirates SC, Downs SC, Broadstairs SC, Margate SC and Herne Bay SC.  

Hannah  and Ciaran Hamer, aged 14 and 11, from Redoubt SC, who had both only been sailing since April 2011, managed to win the Fast lap Challenge and were very pleased with their performance.

Abbey Mumford, also from Redoubt SC, put in an impressive performance in the morning session, collecting a massive eight balls and showing some great sailing skills.   Gus from Downs SC commented ‘‘I had a brilliant time today – I even managed to capsize 17 times!

Windsurfing was great fun as well!’. Keith Macey, instructor and OnBoard Club Co-ordinator at Redoubt SC was also happy with the day: ‘A super day – great weather, great activities and lots of happy faces.’ Sam Rowe, OnBoard Development Officer for Kent, said: ‘Today was my first Festival as an ODO and it was fantastic to see everyone with massive smiles throughout the day.

 Kent is a huge county, to get so many youngsters from a variety of clubs sailing with and against each other is brilliant. Being able to offer all of the sailors a taster session in Windsurfing was superb and I would like to say a massive thank you to the team at Dover Watersports for putting this on.

 A big thank you also to Harken for supplying some lovely goody bags and to John at LaserPerformance for bringing down eight Bugs – the kids loved them!’  

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