TWO North-East sailing clubs enjoyed a royal inspection when Princess Anne carried out a whistle stop tour of the region.

At her first port of call the Princess Royal officially opened Scaling Dam Sailing Club’s new £100,000 training facilities and safety boat storage at the club, which were completed earlier this summer.

Mark Lewis, club commodore, said: "Our new training facilities will help us to work with the local community. We will be able to help people get active more often in the fantastic setting of the North York Moors National Park.

“We could not have done this on our own and all of our funders have been very supportive and helpful throughout the project."

The Princess Royal chatted to some of the club’s disabled members who are benefitting from the erection of a specially designed new jetty to enable them to get in and out of their boats more easily.

John Tate, who helps to train new members to sail, said: “The disabled sailors are all members just like everybody else but what this new jetty means is that we can use all the different lifting hoists to help people in and out of their boats.”

Roy Emmerson, who travels from his home near Ripon, to sail at Scaling Dam, said: “The club is really good. I travel up all the time to use it and the new facilities are excellent for me to use. It was really good the Princess Royal came to officially open them for us.”

After spending an hour on the North York Moors, the Princess Royal got back into her helicopter to fly to the Tees and Hartlepool Sailing Club (THYC) to inspect their facilities.

"Her Royal Highness has visited us before when she opened our new clubhouse in 1998” said Barry Hughes, commodore of THYC. “The club has grown and moved forward from strength to strength in the past few years.

"We attained our Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Sailability status earlier this year and our new pontoon will enable us to bring sailing to a wider Hartlepool community."

Steve Gibbon, chairman of the RYA North East committee, added: “We have fantastic facilities for people of all ages and abilities to get out on the water. Her Royal Highness visited two clubs which will enable even more people to take part in sailing in the North-East.”