A young Taupo sailor will be pulling out all the stops to make sure that his last appearance at the Laser Radial Youth World Championships 2017 in The Netherlands will be his best.
Tauhara College student Blake Woodfield, 18, left last Saturday to head to Europe with his mother Michelle for a week of sightseeing followed by two weeks of training and racing at Medemblik in The Netherlands.
This is the third consecutive year Blake has raced in the Laser Radial Youth World Championships.
He travelled to Canada in 2015 and Ireland in 2016.
The six-day regatta consists of four days of qualifying, with the 280 or so entrants split into four equal fleets that are re-seeded daily to try to keep them even. Following that, the boats are split into gold, silver, bronze and emerald fleets and will compete hard for the top positions.