BEN Wicks will fly the Bermuda flag this summer when he represents the island at the 2003 ISAF Youth World Championships in the Laser class.

Wicks, who attends Saltus, finished in fourth place last weekend at the Bermuda Laser National Championships to earn the right to compete at the Youth Worlds in Madeira, Portugal in July. By finishing fourth he was the top junior sailor in the Laser class.

And while the 17-year-old is excited about competing for Bermuda at this year's Youth Worlds, his eventual goal is to sail for Bermuda at the 2008 Olympics in China. But before that he will be attending university in the United States in Septemebr after graduating from the Saltus Graduate Year.

Wicks will attend Hobart and William Smith Colleges on scholarship in Western New York. The college is a small liberal arts school nestled on 180-acres of lake-front property in the picturesque Finger Lake region.

Hobart will offer Wicks an uncommon opportunity to both study architecture and sail with a US varsity sailing team. Under the expert guidance of head coach, Scott Ikle, Hobart has been enjoying top-five rankings in collegiate sailing in recent years. Because of its 600-foot depth and 35-mile southerly fetch, Lake Seneca will also offer Wicks heavy breezes and sea-like wave action that is ideal for Laser training. Likely to be Hobart's featured single-handed sailor at varsity regattas, Wicks will also see freshman year action representing the college in classic coed double-handed meets.

He said: "I went and looked at the school and it has a beatiuful campus. And it also has a great collegiate sailing team. We will be competing against schools all around the US including Hawaii. Each weekend we will be on the road and go to a different college and compete in a regatta there."

In the single-handed events Wicks expects to sail mostly in Lasers and in the double-handed events he said he expects to sail 420s which Bermuda has.

"I will be doing far more competitive sailing in college than I would be doing in Bermuda - a lot more. I have been speaking to a couple of people and they have said four years of collegiate sailing is equal to about 20 years just sailing in regattas in Bermuda. for instance Paula Lewin was in a collegiate team and look how she has turned out - she is representing Bermuda in 2004 in Athens."

Bermuda's other sailing representative in Athens, Peter Bromby, has also been a big inspiration to Wicks. "I really look up to Peter - he has really inspired me. He started with nothing and I started with nothing. He has also coached me and helped me a bit."

And since the Laser is such a physically demanding class, Wicks decided that he needed to put on much weight and muscle.

"I am going to the gym a lot now - I try for five days a week but I can't always get that many days in there. But it has really helped me. I don't think people realise how much you have to be in shape for sailing - especially Laser sailing. Many people who know nothing about sailing think that you just sit in a boat and steer. They have no clue how physical it is - they really have no idea. I have put on a fair bit of weight over the past year. The optimum weight for a Laser is 180 pounds. In April last year I was 148 pounds and since I have been going to the gym I am now up to 178 pounds."

Wicks was also chosen by the local governing body of sailing, the Bermuda Sailing Association, as their top youth sailor for 2002.

The Youth Worlds is to youth sailors what the Olympics are to adult sailors with only one sailor from each country are able to compete in the single-handed event.

Last weekend's National Championship was convincingly won by 20-year old Zander Kirkland who similarly secured the right to sail for his country this summer in the Pan Am Games in the Dominican Republic.

Last summer, Wicks made his debut in the Olympic class Laser fleet with impressive performances in North America. Finishing 17th or better in most of his races at last year's Youth Worlds in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, he also delivered Bermuda's best overall performance in this event in many years.

Now his goal is to challenge the top performers in Madeira this July.

Even though Wicks is only 17, after last summer's Youth Worlds, he chose to sacrifice youth titles in order to compete in predominantly adult events where his progress, initially, will be slower. He was fourth out of 32 at the Canadian Western Laser Championships and 27th out of 120 at CORK.

Wicks believes that he is fast upwind and can hold a good pace downwind. However, he knows that his greatest gains will come on the start line, especially, starts in big fleets of fiercely aggressive Laser sailors. This is something local sailing can't develop very effectively. Fortunately, college sailing is all about starts and the first beat to the weather mark. After four years at Hobart, this part of his game will grow the most. "The races in college are relatively short so you really have to be good at the start. It is such an important part of sailing. I think competing in college will help my starts a lot."

Part of his slow build-up for this summer's Youth Worlds took him to his first Laser Midwinter's Regatta, held on the Gulf of Mexico last month. Though he was in top physical condition, because it had been six months since his last major regatta, Wicks had his work cut out on the starting line. This year's regatta saw 92 of the toughest sailors from USA, Canada and Europe jockeying for control on the line. In fact, the regatta was won by Ed Wright from the UK, currently ranked third in the world. Wicks said: "Finding a place on the front line in such a pack is like getting comfortable with driving in New York City. Skill must be matched with an equal dose of hard-nosed aggressiveness. If you don't get a clean start at the front, you can never tactically play the wind shifts because you are living in the bad wind of boats ahead and falling deeper into the pack."

Organisers had planned 12 races over four days but, racing the first two in thick fog or a three-knot breeze, meant that they could only squeeze in seven. Despite a frustrating beginning, Wicks was "in the zone" by races six and seven, recording finishes of 26th and 22nd respectively, which were very good considering the talent in this top tier.

In his last race alone he was one of a group of six that hit the weather mark first. While he had hoped for a mid to high 20s overall finish, he had to settle for 41st, only a handful of points from the mid-30s finishers. A full compliment of races in this regatta could have seen him hit his goal.

The next step in Wicks' journey to Madeira will be an advanced Laser clinic which will be staged here in Bermuda at Easter, with Midwinters Champion, Ed Wright. After some local spring racing, he anticipates that his next overseas excursion will include some training on the west coast prior to competing in the Laser North American Championships in Corpus Christi just a few weeks before he hopes to represent his country, in Portugal, at the Youth Worlds. After that, his last stop of the summer should take him back to the CORK regatta in Kingston Ontario before traveling over the border to begin life as a college freshman at Hobart.