Epsom sailor Harriet Ward is off to the 2015 ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships after a nail-biting qualification finale.

Ward, and sailing partner Courtney Bilbrough, will represent Great Britain in Malaysia at the end of the year in the 29er class, but it was a close run thing.

Competing at the 2015 RYA ISAF Youth Worlds selection event on Hayling Island last week, the duo were competing for the sole qualification spot.

The top four boats were within just a couple of points of each other as the final race began, meaning any could come out on top.

Ward, 17, and Bilbrough’s job was made all the more tough having been disqualified in a previous round, and while they won the final race, they did not know if they had done enough.

Bilbrough said: “I kind of had an idea after three races that it was really close.

“Once we finished we spent the whole of the way into shore trying to calculate if we had won or not. We didn’t want to celebrate until we knew.

“We thought we had won, but we weren’t sure.”

Ward, a pupil at City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead with hopes of going to Southampton University to study geography, added: “I don’t know how I felt, we weren’t expecting it.

Your Local Guardian:

Done it: Courtney Bilbrough and Harriet Ward, right, enjoy that winning feeling

“We were really happy I guess, but it was really tough. Our main rivals were Hattie [Rogers] and Emma [Loveridge] so we were trying to make sure we were covering them.”

The Youth Sailing World Championships will be held in Langkawi, Malaysia, and brings together the best youth sailors from across the world to compete for glory.

Team leader Oli Woodcock said: “We have a strong team heading out to Malaysia.

“We are going to work with all of the sailors to create the tailored training plans we need to make sure they work around their school commitments.”

He added: “I think we have a good chance of medals in a lot of the classes and I’m really looking forward to working with them all over the next few months.”