49er Europeans at Real Club Nautico de Laredo Overall

British sailors win silver medal at Europeans

Team GBR sailors Chris Draper and Olympic silver medallist Simon Hiscocks have won the silver medal at the 49er European championships, matching their result at this event last year.

Draper and Hiscocks led the event throughout the week in a mixture of conditions, but with a further four races to sail on the last day there was all to play for and anything could happen.

In light conditions Draper and Hiscocks scored an 8,11,8,15, which was enough to prevent the Spanish pairing of Iker Martinez and Xabier Fernandez from defending their European title, but meant that their training partners Marcus Baur and Max Groy of Germany overtook them and won the gold medal along with the European title.

Fellow British sailor Paul Brotherton and crew Mark Asquith sailed a brilliant final day winning two of the four races, to make a huge jump up the fleet from fourteenth place overall to finally finish fourth. RYA Development Squad sailors Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes finished in tenth place overall with team mates Alister Richardson and Peter Greenhalgh fifteenth.

Draper commented, "We went into today with the same mindset as treating it as any other race day. Unfortunately we didn't get off the start line as well as we could have done and therefore made a bit more work for ourselves. We are still really pleased to have come second and to continue to be so consistent at the regattas this year, you can't win them all but there are definitely some things we will take away from this regatta to work on."

Overall Results: