Two London schoolchildren saw off 400 other entries to win a sail design competition, earning their own-designed sails as prizes. 

Kane Lincoln, from London Nautical School, and Becky Knipe, of Queen Mary Sailing Club, clinched the 12-16 and 11-and-under age groups respectively in the LaserPerformance Pico Mainsail Design Competition.

Their prizes also included a two-day course each at SailLaser and a further six of their own-design Pico mainsails for their OnBoard-affiliated sailing clubs.

James Bullar, of the London Nautical School says: ‘It is fantastic that one of our pupils won the  competition. They designed sails which they thought would look fun, and therefore encourage others to get out and have fun on the water’

Katie Ashworth, from LaserPerformance, says: ‘We are delighted to have been able to support OnBoard in this way. We had a huge number of wonderful entries which made the competition very hard to judge.

Started in 2004 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.

Supported by Sport England, to date more than 210,000 OnBoard beginner sessions have been run across the country’s 180 OnBoard Clubs and Centres, with over 10,500 youngsters taking up sailing or windsurfing on a regular basis.

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.