Twenty-year-old Hannah White’s bid to become the youngest woman to sail single-handedly, non-stop round Britain has ended in failure.

She was escorted by the Weymouth lifeboat into Weymouth harbour after Solent Coastguard received a 999 call from her shore party.

She had a ripped mainsail and other gear failure during a south-easterly Force 7 aboard her 21ft Magnan-designed Mini Transat boat.

She had set off from Southampton and was planning to make the 1,500 mile passage in a clockwise direction.