Aspiring young sailor Noah Sherriff from Portbury, Bristol has been awarded his very own boat, donated by the John Merricks Sailing Trust, in the inaugural year of an exciting new scheme.  

Noah (10) who learnt to sail through the RYA OnBoard programme was selected from almost 100 applications after competing in the RYA South West Zone Championships at Weymouth in September.  

Noah learnt to sail at Bristol Sailing School, and he loves it and now participates in the School’s 'All Aboard' club in the evenings and weekends as well as helping out there in half-term and holidays, encouraging others with their sailing and maintaining the boats.

He has now also joined Chew Valley Sailing Club and regularly attends the Topper Travellers events in the South West.  

Noah’s father Peter said: “We're very grateful to everyone at the John Merricks Trust for this fantastic award.  Noah is so excited about being awarded a boat - we didn't tell him immediately, partly because we couldn't believe it ourselves and partly because we wanted to wait until the weekend because we knew he would never be able to go to sleep that night and then get up for school in the morning! 

"When we did, he had the biggest smile on his face and I don't think it has really worn off since, it's always there at the back of his mind and he knows that people really believe in him and his commitment and determination.” 

Noah added: “It's incredible to be awarded this boat. I still won't really believe it until we go down and collect it. It's made me realise that you can do anything really if you just try hard and don't give up.”  

RYA OnBoard Operations Officer Cat Ferguson said: “We were overwhelmed with the amount of applications we received and selecting just a small number of sailors was an extremely difficult task. We’re really excited to award Noah with a boat as he has shown real enthusiasm, talent and commitment to the sport.”  

Noah will receive two years of exclusive use of the boat. After this the Trust will donate it to Bristol Sailing School to benefit training programmes and enable other young sailors to progress into club, regional and national racing activities in the future.      

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.  

JMST seeks to help young sailors and youth sailing organisations to achieve their goals and was set up in the memory of leading Olympic sailor and 1996 Olympic silver medallist John Merricks.   As official RYA OnBoard Charity Partner, over the next five years the JMST will donate more than 50 single-handed junior pathway boats and boards to promising OnBoard sailors. Each year at least one young sailor will be selected from each of the nine RYA Zones and Home Countries, to receive two years of exclusive use of the boat which has been donated by the Trust.  

Bishop Skinner Marine has kindly agreed to insure all of the donated boats and boards for the two year period the youngsters will be campaigning.  

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   

For more information about the JMST visit www.jmst.org.uk