Britain’s Paralympic classes sailors kicked off the GBR medal tally at the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta in Weymouth and Portland on Friday (13 August), with two silvers in two classes on the penultimate day of the event.  

The three Paralympic fleets finished their regatta series on Friday, with SKUD World Champions Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell picking up the overall World Cup series crown, but having to settle for second place at the regatta behind the Australian duo of Daniel Fitzgibbon and Rachael Cox.   

“The Australians fully deserve their gold medal – they sailed better than us this week and I’m not going to take that away from them,” said Rickham.  

“I think they’re stronger in breezy conditions than we are – this week obviously brought a bit of breeze so we know what we have to work on and where the gaps are, and I suppose all things being looked at, that’s the advantage of having an event here.  

“We can see where we need to make up ground versus where we were at the Worlds where we were playing very much to our strengths,” Rickham continued.  

“All in all, it’s been good learning, I can’t really complain.  It’s a medal – a medal’s a medal!” John Robertson, Steve Thomas and Hannah Stodel also secured silver for the host nation, missing out on gold at the hands of the Dutch World Championship-winning boat, helmed by Udo Hessels, but enduring a bit of final day drama in the process.

“Our forestay broke in the first race,” Stodel explained, “so it was a bit of drama coming down the last run but we got that fixed on the water and we were happy.   “Luckily the jib’s got quite a lot of tension on it so we managed to hold the mast up until the finish line.”

“We were aiming for a top three,” she continued.  “A medal at the Games venue is pretty good really so we’re happy.  It would have been nice for it to be a different colour but any medal’s good right now.”