A Wharfedale family has won a first prize in a yachting competition whilst sailing to Australia.

Rod Campbell-Ross and his family from Ilkley are halfway through their voyage from England to a new life Down Under.

In December they competed in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers race from Gran Canaria to St Lucia and won one of the competitions involving log books.

Wife Sue, 35, said: "We won the prize for the best illustrated log book. We were very, very thrilled because a lot of work went into it during the course of the Atlantic crossing.

"It is really beautiful - lots of paintings and drawings by the children. Our crew also did pictures and wrote entries, and I did a few pathetic water colours but they were good enough to get us first place!"

Their children Harry, Pippa and Emily had kept a detailed diary of their voyage through the race using pictures they had drawn.

After spending Christmas and New Year moored in St Lucia the family have travelled to Grenada and are preparing to travel to the island of Bonaire, near Venezuela.They left Ilkley in April last year and have been leisurely cruising through the Mediterranean and the Atlantic en route to Australia.

They aim to get to Australia in October after taking in Curacoa, Aruba and the San Blas islands, which are off the coast of Panama and can only be reached by boat.

"Apparently, they are wonderful islands, incredibly beautiful and there are hundreds of them," said Sue.

"They are mostly uninhabited. We will be there for a while and then head for Panama to go through the canal - quite a daunting experience!

"From there we will head for the Galapagos islands for two weeks and then the big crossing - from the Galapagos to the Marquesas group of islands - a journey of more than 3,000 miles.

"So from now on we are heading off the well beaten track and it is scary. We will wander through the Pacific islands until we reach Australia."

Sue's New Year's resolutions were to hope for no winds, no storms and experience life in all sorts of places and all sorts of ways.