A CRAVEN vicar who is as much at home on the water as on dry land has set himself a tall task.

Rev Michael Heslop is being sponsored to go sailing on a tall ship to raise funds for The Mission to Seafarers.

Mr Heslop, a kayak enthusiast who teaches the sport to youngsters on Embsay reservoir through the summer, has joined The Mission to Seafarers Canaries Sailing Challenge to help crew the Jubilee Sailing Trust's square-rigger Lord Nelson.

The Mission to Seafarers (formerly The Missions to Seamen) is part of the Anglican Church. It cares for the practical and spiritual welfare of seafarers of all races and creeds in 300 ports throughout the world.

To fund the trip, Mr Heslop has to raise £1,200 in sponsorship, plus a £200 registration fee. Part of his fundraising will be a 60 mile fell walk in January around the boundaries of his three parishes of Arncliffe with Halton Gill, Hubberholme, and Kettlewell with Conistone.

"I'm hoping the ground will be frozen hard, otherwise it could be very difficult underfoot," he said.

He will join a three masted barque and take turns at the helm, setting the sails, climbing the rigging and scrubbing the decks while the ship sails from Las Palmas around the Canary Isles between March 8 to 15.

Mr Heslop was previously vicar of Silloth in Cumbria and the Mission to Seafarers honorary chaplain in the port. He and his wife Jan moved to Upper Wharfedale two years ago. Their son Ben, 23, is a second officer on a North Sea dredger.

"I take every opportunity to remind people that 90 per cent of our trade is carried by sea," he said. "There is very little in our local village shop that has not spent some time in a container on a ship. This challenge is a chance to broaden my horizon and do so in warm waters rather than the very cold water off the west coast of Scotland where I go kayaking."

The Mission hopes that the challenge will raise enough money to pay for a full-time port chaplain for a year.