SA Sailing have launched an innovative project that has seen second-year industrial design students from the Cape Peninsular University of Technology (CPUT) hard at work to design and develop an educational DIY radio-controlled boat kit that can be built by primary school students aged between 10-13.
In order to exactly what was required the students were given a taste of real-life sailing themselves with a three-hour introduction to the sport at the Royal Cape Yacht Club (RCYC) in Cape Town.
They then worked on their designs with the top three selected by a panel of judges from SA Sailing. Apart from getting the students themselves interested in sailing, once completed, the project aims to create opportunities for previously disadvantage youth to have access to sailing, educate the youth on sailing and opportunities it provides and to give access to the water while also building relationships within marginalised communities.
Numerous designs were on display at the exhibition event at RCYC. Peter Sherlock, SA Sailing Marketing Director and Cruising Councillor, and CEO of the Ocean Sailing Association of Southern Africa (OSASA) commented: “It was a very difficult competition to judge. All of us felt that every model on show had some good points to it and everyone had obviously paid a lot of attention to detail and that was great to see.
“Having sailed many boats, one of the important things about a boat is simplicity. The simpler a boat is the easier it is to maintain and the easier it is to go out and have fun rather than to spend time keeping it going … There are some amongst them that have done that very well and considering the age group that these models are supposed to lend themselves towards, something that is simple and easy to learn to sail is a better way to go,” added Sherlock.
Ryan Shafer was awarded top prize for his design while Emma Knott came in second and Daniel Harris third.
“It was very exciting,” said Shafer. “I really enjoyed making it. A lot of trial, a lot of errors but then we learned so much. It’s been six weeks of our lives and three weeks of that was just doing research, reading documents and manuals for radio-controlled boats and messaging my old scout leader asking for advice on knots and mechanisms. It’s been good to broaden my horizons.”
The aptly named Knott reckoned that having sailed before gave her a bit of an edge.
“I’m quite lucky – I’ve been sailing with my friend a couple of times, so I actually had a bit of an advantage because I had seen a boat before and knew how it worked. But I’ve always been very keen on sailing and it is lots of fun.”
Speaking about the project itself, she added: “It’s very cool being put in the real world. It’s only the beginning of second year but we’re doing this big project for SA Sailing and it definitely motivates you more – something a bit bigger to work towards rather than just your end of term work.”
Back row: Wendy Adams, Sean Kavanagh, Michael Kavanagh, John Levin, Peter Sherlock, Leila Burton. Front: Daniel Harris, Ryan Schäfer, Emma Knott