A week after attending the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, was back in the UK for an engagement where she got to be a part of the action. The duchess traveled to the island of Guernsey on Monday to help a group of young people prepare for a boat race honoring the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Photographs from the engagement show the royal lifting a buoy on board and standing at the captain’s wheel, wearing a hat she picked up in Paris.
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According to the Bailiwick Express, Sophie met with students who are participating in a Guernsey to Poole Small Ships Race organized by the Association of Sail Training Organizations. The multi-day race began on Tuesday afternoon, and the fastest of the 12 competing boats will begin to arrive in Poole, a small coastal town in Dorset, on Thursday morning.
Sophie has served as the royal patron of the ASTO since 2011, and the organization’s chief executive Karen McMillan said they invited her to the Monday training session so she could meet the students as they prepared for the major undertaking.
“We are absolutely delighted that the Duchess was prepared to come over and spend so much time with us today,” McMillan told the Guernsey Press. “What we want is for as many people as possible to know about the life-changing impact of sail training and having someone like her come along, especially when she is a sailor herself, brings a lot more visibility to what we’re doing.”
The newspaper also reported that Sophie received a special gift from one of the young people preparing for the race. Thirteen-year-old Verity Hayter asked Sophie to join the Gorsemoor Scouts, a nearby boys and girls scouting pack, and when the duchess agreed, she was given a neckerchief with the pack’s logo. “Once I got off the steps and onto the pontoon, I reminded her of the Scout Law, and then she repeated the Scout promise,” Hayter added.
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