A crew of 15 students from Southampton Institute gave a fantastic performance in the prestigious French National Open Mumm 30 Crews Championship, which took place in the French town of Le Harve at the weekend.

The crew comprised students from France, England, Italy and Germany. They produced some brilliant racing to give them an excellent placing.

At the end of seven races, their boat, Southampton Institute-Alfa Laval, finished 22nd overall and fourth in the student category.

The three days of racing produced some exciting and tactical racing in variable conditions.

On the first day of racing, conditions were six-seven knots of wind, rising later to ten-11. However, on the second day, the wind gusted to 30, and on the final day the crews were treated to brilliant sunshine.

Yoann Richomme, the skipper of Southampton Institute-Alfa Laval, commented: "This was a superb regatta with magnificent race organisation and a superb stretch of water, which produced excellent racing. It gave us a really good trial run for the Tour de France a la Voile and it was a wonderful battle between the student teams."

Crew member Fiona Earle added: "It was brilliant out there. We've learnt a lot, especially that we are not as bad as we thought."

The crew now look forward to competing in the internationally renowned Tour de France a la Voile, which begins on June 26 from Dunkerque.

The Tour de France a la Voile is an international competition where the biggest and best specialists go to sail. Many competitors who have previously sailed in the Admiral's Cup, raced around the world or taken part in the America's Cup will be participating.

However, the regatta is open to anyone and the institute crew will race in the student category.

This result reaffirms the outstanding ability of the sailing crews at Southampton Institute, with the Southampton Institute yachting team also producing an outstanding performance by winning the British Universities Sailing Association (BUSA) Student Yachting Nationals - for the third time in four years.

This win qualified the team as the English representative for the Student Yachting World Cup at the end of the summer.