Sailor Sarah Aynesworth has joined an elite sisterhood.

She has sailed round Cape Horn, one of the most treacherous stretches of water in the world, on a three-mast wooden ship.

It means the 26-year-old joins the privileged few sailors entitled to wear the Cape Horners' gold earring.

"I'm also allowed to eat with my feet on the table, spit where I like and something else I shouldn't mention in print," said the former Skipton Girls High School student who is cultivating a name for herself as a maritime film-maker.

She was among a crew of 30 aboard the Europa, a three-mast bark which sailed from Easter Island, around Cape Horn and to the Falkland Islands.

Sarah, of Burnsall, near Skipton, was helping to make a documentary commemorating the lives of sailors who rounded the treacherous Cape Horn waters in windjammers - wooden sailing vessels.

She said: "I was very anxious - it's a very daunting prospect.

"I rounded the Horn in 1998 on a power vessel and I thought then "this is bad, I'd never go round in a sailing boat.

"Then I started sailing and eventually this opportunity came and of course you have to take the chance.

"We were very lucky because the weather was reasonable. It was squally with hail and snow, but even so it was an anxious time," said Sarah.

The brutal facts of rounding the Horn were brought home when within a few days of reaching the Falklands, they heard that a German vessel had been lost.

"That was very sad and really brought home the dangers," said Sarah.

The Europa, a Dutch vessel built in 1911, set off in November from Easter Island in the middle of the pacific, on the 3,000 mile journey.

Among the crew were experienced sailors like Sarah and novices, including a 75-year-old man who works as a school crossing patrol in Bolton, Lancashire.

To round off the trip, they sailed even further south, skirting giant icebergs, to South Georgia, before returning to the Falklands and flying home.

l Two years ago, Sarah was a crew member on the power boat Adventurer, which sailed round the world in a record-breaking 74 days.