Sailing is a unique sport in that it teaches its students key transferable skills to equip them for life. Skills like teamwork, problem solving and resilience.

Every sailor can tell you that the skills they have learned from sailing, they use every day.

Sailors take these critical skills off the water, to be successful in other endeavours.

The Sail Up Foundation believes that there are too many obstacles which make sailing inaccessible, and our goal is to eliminate them.

There are a number of sailing centres which are geographically close to state-funded schools, but the schools do not have the knowledge or funds to establish sailing programmes. And these same schools identify resilience, teamwork and problem solving as their core values. At the Sail Up Foundation, we aim to build relationships between schools and local sailing clubs in order to create and support sustainable sailing programmes for students who would not otherwise have access to the sport.

The Sail Up Foundation's priority is to remove barriers to participation, and encourage and empower young people to take part in the sport. Your generous donations contribute directly to funding programme fees for a day of sailing, weekly sailing programmes and transportation to sailing clubs.

Safe, engaging and educational after school activities are scarce, especially during the school funding crisis. And we cannot allow young people to miss out on opportunities many of us were afforded, simply due to different economic circumstances. Many after school programmes require significant input and engagement from parents which are either unsustainable or simply untenable. The Sail Up Foundation uses existing infrastructure within schools and sailing clubs to maximise access to the sport, without creating additional stress for students' families.

The skills sailing can offer to students are skills for life, and the Sail Up Foundation believes in giving young people the opportunity to learn these skills and challenge themselves on and off the water.