SAILING

TRIMPLEY Sailing Club's Alison Young is getting into ship-shape condition for her trip to Korea next month as a Team GBR member competing in the World Youth Sailing Championships.

The 18-year-old Bewdley High School student has recently spent a week at Weymouth for team training and is now looking forward to the challenges ahead.

"It went well and I got to know a number of my team-mates better," said Young, who recently returned from an Olympic Class Regatta held in the Netherlands.

"I've got my A-levels going on at the moment as well, so with the sailing as well it's a very busy time, particularly with the training," she said.

Sixty female sailors from 25 counties competed in 13 races over a five-day period in the Netherlands.

Some of the top sailors in the world took part from as far afield as Australia and the USA and after the first nine races they were split into Gold and Silver fleet.

Young had finished the first round in equal 30th place and just missed being in the Gold fleet.

She produced her best results on day one of the fleet sailing with sixth, fifth and second positions and led the Silver fleet at that stage.

On the final day's race she was unfortunately disqualified for being over the line at the start.

She did, however, still manage to finish third in the fleet which was a good result for her first Olympic regatta.

Prior to the event she had completed three spring qualifiers. In the events she finished as first female youth on two occasions with her best overall results being seventh places at both Plymouth and Pwllheli. The results among the females were one second place and two fourths.

These results, combined with a fourth place in a national ranking event in Weymouth, saw Young lying in fourth spot in the female national ladder rankings.

She has one more regatta to attend in Germany, at the start of next month, before heading off to Korea.