Britain’s Paralympic classes sailors scored their best ever World Championship medal haul at the Delta Lloyd IFDS World Championships, which concluded today (14 July) in Medemblik (NED) with a British crew on the podium in each of the three classes.

The Sonar trio of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Welshman Steve Thomas overcame a difficult start to their regatta, which had them down in eighth place at the beginning of the week, to claim their silver.

The two-time World Champions held their nerve, and gradually sailed their way back into contention with a series of solid results for the remainder of the week to end up in medal contention, and at one stage looking like they had pulled off a last-gasp regatta victory on the final day.

But a protest between the Dutch and USA crews for an infringement during race nine ultimately went in favour of the Dutch, handing them the overall victory by one point and leaving the Skandia Team GBR crew with silver.

“The start we had to the week was incredibly average,” Robertson explained.  We had a bit of bad luck, but we kept pegging away, had a bit more self-belief. 

“We knew we’d trained well and it proved in the end that we were stronger than we thought, so to get a podium spot here is great for the confidence.

“We’ve been pretty good this week at not compounding any mistakes that we did make and being sensible, not panicking and getting back into the game.  We have been guilty before of trying to over-think things and over-complicate situations, so we just kept our heads and kept things nice and simple it worked out well for us.”

 
For full results and the latest news on Skandia Team GBR’s sailors in action around the world visit www.skandiateamgbr.com

Gold – SKUD class
Alexandra Rickham (Epsom) & Niki Birrell (Knutsford)

Silver – Sonar class
John Robertson (Sunderland), Hannah Stodel (Colchester) and Steve Thomas (Cardiff)

Bronze – 2.4mR class
Megan Pascoe (Ardingley)