Southampton sailors Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond won a silver medal at the Nacra 17 World Championship in Hollandy.

The pair, from Warsash, took part in the new Olympic class and could have had a gold medal but settled for second place after the lack of wind prevented them from competing on the last day of the event at The Hague.

Saxton admitted to ‘chomping at the bit’ to try and overcome the narrow three-point margin that French pairing of Billy Besson-Marie Riou had at the top of the leaderboard in the final medal race, before the race was abandoned after the breeze failed to pick up.

“I’m massively pleased at winning a medal. The sport’s all about winning medals in a few years’ time in Rio, so to prove we can get a medal here is pretty cool,” said the 23-year-old helmsman, who switched into the Nacra 17 class at the end of 2012 after previously sailing the 470.

“We would have loved the chance to have had a go at the French guy but it wasn’t to be. We’re really happy with a silver, Hannah’s done a good job!”

Diamond, also 23, was equally complimentary of her teammate, “Ben’s done a really good job! We’ve had some really tactical racing and we’ve been pretty consistent all week so I think we’ve worked really well together.

“We’ve had conditions that we weren’t really expecting – a lot of tide, and lighter winds than maybe we were all expecting but it’s really helpful for it to be something similar to Rio. We know we’ve got a lot of work to do, but this is definitely a good step on the way.”

Poole Olympian Lucy Macgregor and Lymington gold medallist Pippa Wilson were also in action in the new class, finishing 11th and 12th with their respective crews Tom Phipps and John Gimson.

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