Tanya Budd

Having noticed while out with friends on a sailing course, that the recovery devices for the ‘man overboard’ exercises didn’t work too effectively, Tanya realised that what was needed was a quite simple device with which to haul people out of the water.

She went to the Southampton Boat Show and realised that this sort of thing was simply not on offer, so she set about creating one as part of a school project.

“There’s something different about this,” her teacher Graham Prickett kept saying, after she manufactured a prototype. “You should patent it,” he urged.

Yet Tanya was still in denial about how revolutionary her sling-style device was. Finally she took his advice and registered the product – and ended up with two companies approaching her asking to work for them.

She went on to win the Young Engineer of Britain Award, after her ever-encouraging teacher told her to enter. Best of all, her HypoHoist is now in the shops.

Does Tanya think that there are enough role models for young engineers like herself? “Not that are presented to you when you’re young, no. “If you look around you will find them, but it’s not something we know enough about. I was going to study medicine until I won the engineering prize – I didn’t even know what engineering was!