TWO friends from North Yorkshire sculpted a giant sailing boat out of snow in an international competition.

Fitness coach Martin Sharp, from York, and tree surgeon Justin Scott, from Driffield, sculpted an interactive sailing boat out of snow in the international snow sculpture competition, Shapes in White, in Ischgl, Austria.

Their snow boat, which they called the Unsinkable 2, secured them ninth place in the competition, which finished on Friday, January 13.

Martin, 45, who runs the fitness and lifestyle coaching business Sharp Fit For Life, said the risk they'd taken by choosing a simpler design hadn't paid off with a ranking in the top five.

Plus, as the only British competitors, he explained that they were the "underdogs" of the competition, as there is rarely enough snowfall for them to practice snow sculpting in the UK.

However, they weren't disappointed because their design had allowed people to sit inside the boat.

Martin said: “We’ve taken a huge pile of snow and turned it into an amazing snow boat which made people smile and had a lot of fun doing it.

"We absolutely loved creating this sculpture and it feels like we literally sailed it as it just came together really well. 

"Our favourite moment has been seeing the faces of everyone who has looked around the finished sculpture. They’ve all had the wow moment and they have all sat in the boat and pretended to be sailors in the middle of the mountains."

Last year, Martin and Justin secured fourth place with a double decker bus sized sculpture of Eddie the Eagle, to pay homage to the British ski jumper.

The pair, who first met at Leeds Canoe Club in 2002, are now travelling 140km north of the Arctic Circle in the Swedish Lapland to compete in the Kiruna International Snow Sculpture Competition for the first time, on January 25 to 29.

They will create an abstract bronze sculpture of the human form, designed by Justin, who has been snow sculpting since 2000.

 Martin said: "We’re really looking forward to Kiruna – the snow in that part of the world is excellent quality and it should be a great adventure.

"As soon as we’d finished the detail on our snow boat, we started to think about how we could best approach our next creation – we’ve even been dreaming about snow sculptures."