Sculpting sandcastles 'more tiring than you think'

A woman competing on a new BBC show in which competitors sculpt sand art said it was a "brilliant" and "tiring" experience.

Athena Cauley Yu runs a stationery and calligraphy business in Bath, Somerset, and features in BBC Two's Race Against the Tide alongside professional sand sculptor Rachel Stubbs.

The series sees seven teams battle it out to build spectacular sand sculptures before the tide washes them away in St Andrews, Scotland, with all episodes available on BBC iPlayer.

She said: "Someone on the production team actually contacted me and I was like, a hilarious sand sculpting competition? Yes, of course, I want to do that."

Cauley Yu said she was headhunted for the programme as someone who had never tried sand sculpture before.

"The main reason I wanted to take part in Race Against The Tide was how utterly random and niche it sounded," she said.

"I adore a bit of hands-on creativity and am very much all for doing the random fun thing when the opportunity arises."

Cauley Yu said the non-professionals on the show had two days of training with judge Jamie Wardley to get "the basics down".

"Each episode has a different theme, a different topic," she explained. "Then [we] as the competitors had to design a sculpture that fitted in."

Cauley Yu said the sculpting was "extremely tiring", as it involved shovelling about seven tonnes of sand.

She said competitors can see the tide coming in as they sculpt, adding: "It looks quite far away... then you carry on in your sculpting and then you look again, and it's literally metres from you. Then it's panic stations."

She said Stubbs told her the sand in St Andrews was "lovely" for carving, but the sand closer to home in Weston-super-Mare was also "very good"

Stubbs, 32, from Tiverton in Devon, got into sand sculpting after growing up living next door to someone who did it. She said it was "great" working with Cauley Yu.

"She brought so much positive energy to the experience," she said. "She was so enthusiastic and she picked up what I was telling her almost instantly.

"I think she's got a bit of a natural flair for sculpture and creating things that are 3D."

The pair plan to meet up in September to do some sand sculpting on Weston-super-Mare beach.

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