Every year, nearly 500 people drown in British waters.

Some of these deaths can be prevented through proper water safety education in our Primary Schools.

We want to help improve this.

Welcome to the Board of Europe project.

The Board of Europe project was set up by a group of volunteer Lifesavers & Lifeguards in October 2006, with the following aims;

• To try and create a newsworthy challenge through which to interest the media and public to the importance of water safety
• To attempt to use this challenge and its sponsorship potential to raise around £20,000
• To subsequently use this sponsorship to help produce a unique water safety resource for primary school children in the UK, with the help of other water safety partners and groups

The Challenge

Completed in September 2007, paddlers Rob Inett & James Fletcher paddlers Rob Inett & James Fletcher paddled some 190km on special surf rescue 'paddleboards' at 20 different venues, back to back, over a 20 day tour. The team visited different places every day, sometimes becoming the first to ever paddle such boards at some of the locations, and distributed a large quantity of water safety information materials along the way. A full report and picture gallery of this groundbreaking challenge can be found here.

2008 will see a variety of different paddling challenges emerging, hoping to capture the spirit and push the boundaries of paddleboarding.It is hoped that by the end of two yearss, the team will have generated over £20,000 of sponsorship to enable them to work with other water safety and educational bodies to help produce a new DVD or online water safety resource for the home and school. The team also hope to use their pictures and story to produce a variety of other media that makes water safety look more appealing to the younger generation.

Rob and James are backed by a support crew of Polly Greenhalgh & Neil Aldridge, and are supported by a number of technical sponsors who can be found here.