Norfolk & Suffolk Boating Association Awards

Excelsior © Rob Howarth Photography

At a General Meeting of the Broads' principal boating organisation, the Norfolk & Suffolk Boating Association (NSBA), there was presentation of a highest-impact award for Sail-Training; their Chair presented the Association's Mike Evans Award to the Excelsior Trust which is also an Affiliate of NSBA; the following glowing citation accompanied the award:

EXCELSIOR has taken to sea over 11,000 often disadvantaged young people people, since re-commissioning by HRH The Princess Royal at Lowestoft in 1988.

Taking last season (2024) as an example, EXCELSIOR visited fourteen countries in seventeen weeks and participated in Sail Training International's Tall Ships Race in the Baltic, as well as visiting the Faroe Islands. EXCELSIOR was the only British Registered vessel to compete in the 2024 race. At their Corunna conference in October, STI awarded EXCELSIOR the Sultan Qaboosh Trophy for her performance during the race. This is the STI top award and the first time it has been awarded to a British vessel. The Excelsior-Trust is also a member of the UK Association of Sail Training Organisations. With a similarly intense programme for 2025 it was planned to compete again in the STI Tall Ships Race in the North Sea (making much easier the logistics of weekly crew changes), as well as voyages to the Netherlands and briefly back to the Baltic.

Sail Training at sea changes lives: it works differently to other forms of engagement and it usually takes at least three days to 'reach' deep into a young person.

Regularly, the first time a new EXCELSIOR crew member has done anything as part of a team, is when they pull up EXCELSIOR's mainsail; if they don't hoist that sail, the boat doesn't move.

They sail out through the harbour mouth, relax and begin to enjoy the experience; within a couple of miles, they lose mobile signal, which will not be available again until they make next landfall. A little later, it dawns that they cannot get off; they are stuck - entirely out of their comfort zones, with unfamiliar crewmates in confined quarters below deck and in a sailing environment they don't understand.

They all lend a hand with cooking, washing up and sail changes; they are taught some basic navigation and all have a go at helming EXCELSIOR. Before long, they decide that night watches can be fun and they are picking up new skills at every turn and it's something they have done for themselves.

A different, more confident young person steps off EXCELSIOR at the end of their trip.

One can delight that so many of the young crews volunteer and return to help with EXCELSIOR's winter maintenance at the Lowestoft shipyard.