MORE than 3,600 schoolchildren have learned to sail for £5 over the past four years on the borough’s Olympic waters.

Over the past four years, through the Chesil Trust’s Sail for £5 scheme, SailLaser has delivered these taster sessions and offered Royal Yachting Association (RYA) scholarships to those pupils showing great enthusiasm or talent from each session.

Around 80 scholarship winners have gone on to do their RYA Stage 1, while 30 lucky youngsters were awarded scholarships to do Stage 2 courses, this year alone.

Many other local residents have had the opportunity to sail at a reduced rate of £60 for eight weeks as part of the SailLaser OnBoard Club, which runs weekly throughout the year.

It’s an opportunity to get out on the water on a regular basis and improve on their skills for an affordable price.

Young sailors, who have emerged from Sail for £5 and progressed through SailLaser’s OnBoard and Race Club, include Portland’s Adam Greaves and Sherborne’s Ross McFarlane, who competed the LaserPerformance World Open this June in the Laser 4.7.

Race club member Ross, 13, won the regatta for the Laser 4.7 Class.

This year the fourth annual Dorset Schools Regatta was run by SailLaser, in conjunction with the Rockley Watersports Centre, at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

Each school in Dorset was invited to put forward a team of three students to compete in the event and nine schools from across the county qualified for the finals.

All Saints School in Weymouth triumphed and took home the prestigious Bill Ludlow Cup this year.

The Independent Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS) held their first ever National Sailing Regatta at SailLaser, which included 60 students from IAPS schools across the UK.

The hugely-successful event is to take place again, over two days in 2011.

SailLaser has also delivered more than 300 sailing sessions this year for people with learning and physical disabilities in the local area and set up a regular Sailability sailing club.