When the first ever Cornwall Swim Festival takes place next month at Trevassack Lake on the Lizard Peninsula – home of the Children’s Sailing Trust – the event will be that bit safer thanks to a new set of marker buoys sourced and funded by Falmouth Harbour.
In a spirit of true community partnership which is at the heart of both the Cornish charity and the Trust Port, Falmouth Harbour has replaced old inflatable markers which were starting to sink with eight new buoys – essential at Trevassack for water management during training sessions, events and open-water swimming.
Children’s Sailing Trust operates from its fully accessible Trevassack Lake HQ helping children of all backgrounds build confidence, independence and life skills through sailing and watersports. Events like the Cornwall Swim Festival on Sunday 2nd November, hosted by CST Experiences – the Trading arm of Children’s Sailing Trust – help raise awareness and funds for its work in providing life-changing opportunities for young people across Cornwall.
“Our partners in our local community help us deliver incredible experiences for children of all ages, backgrounds and abilities through sailing and watersports – and of course imperative to everything we do is safety,” says CST Chair James Staughton.
“For Falmouth Harbour to come on board at this critical moment, providing marker buoys ahead of such an exciting event as the first Cornwall Swim Festival is fantastic and we’re looking forward to working with the Harbour Team into the future.”
As a Trust Port, Falmouth Harbour (FH) has an on-going mission to invest any financial surplus made from running of commercial and leisure activities back to the benefit of its communities and environment – operating as it does with no shareholders or owners and receiving no government funding.
Falmouth Harbour CEO Miles Carden says, “To be able to provide some support to such an amazing charity as Children’s Sailing Trust – connected to young people in Cornwall and our incredible watery environment – is a real pleasure.
“We love working in partnerships and our sponsorship of the CST buoys is partnership in action – local marine organisations supporting grassroots community charities. Their installation in time for the Swim Festival highlights a shared commitment to safe, inclusive and environmentally responsible use of Cornwall’s waterways.
“We are always looking at ways to increase safe accessibility to the water and this is not just an amazing thing to do – it’s also about investing in the future and therefore makes sound business sense.”
CST’s Trevassack Lake is a fully accessible watersports centre with adapted facilities and equipment for people with disabilities and its core charitable school sailing programme still runs on the Helford River, as it has done for nearly 30 years.
The Lake itself will provide a perfect – and bracing – venue for the first Cornwall Swim Festival which runs on November 2 from 10am – 4pm, organised by Cornish Kelpie – aka Sarah Walsh who is Inspirational Woman of the Year 2025 – with Children’s Sailing Trust as beneficiary.
The inaugural event is a celebration of open water swimming, wellbeing and community, with swim distances from 50m to 1500m, plus RNLI water safety sessions, live music, local food and stalls from Cornish small businesses. It is being sponsored by Dryrobe, headline speaker is Professor Mike Tipton from the University of Portsmouth and both the Morholan Sauna & Wild Spa and Trevassack Lake Cafe will be open throughout the day.
To find out more about the Cornwall Swim Festival see https://cstexperiences.co.uk/cornwall-swim-festival/
For information about Children’s Sailing Trust visit https://childrenssailingtrust.org.uk/
For more on the work of Falmouth Harbour, including its environment and community initiatives see https://www.falmouthharbour.co.uk/environment/
