One Day Sail Boat Challenge- Thursday 5th Jan 2006.

In conjunction with Solent Skill Quest and the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, Engineering Your Future ran a one day challenge with 118 year 6 pupils in 20 teams to design, test sail and race sail boats on our 5m test pond. The challenge was designed to encourage students into looking at the marine engineering sector as a career path in later life and also give them a short visit to the N.O.C. aquarium and the Isis Control Centre.

The pupils were supplied with our standard hulls and the challenge was to design the best adaptable sail/rigging set up to compete against each other down a predetermined course with heat winners progressing through to further rounds and ultimately a final where prizes were handed out for design, manufacture and teamwork.

The students and staff involved showed good enthusiasm for the challenge producing great ideas and well decorated boats.
Once the initial ideas were assembled the pupils could test them on the water to see what changes could be made to maximise their boat speed for the cold, windy conditions. The better ones had good sail plans and could reduce sail area, even adjusting the trim for the conditions enabling them to win.

Racing took place in 4 heats with the best 10 going through to the semi's and the top 5 making the final.

With a good breeze all day, craft stability was the key factor as boat speed was high. One round had to be re-run to determine the winner as the spotters couldn't separate them! All rounds and especially the final, were close run things but eventually we had a racing winner. With the marks they got for the design and teamwork, prizes could then be given out.

Thanks goes to Robin Smith and his team from Solent Skills Quest for organising the event, Martin Marsters and the NOC for hosting the day and lastly to the pupils and staff from the 6 primary schools for taking part.

Click here for full racing results.

Congratulations to the overall winners of the event, team number 9, Beechwood 1, who had some original, good ideas, producing an unusual Gaff rigged junk.

118 students hard at work designing sailing boats	EYF staff member Zach Pettinger helping a team
Teams of year 6’s hard at work on their designs	Teams testing their designs on the pond
Teams of year 6’s hard at work on their designs