Two of Bermuda’s world-class sailors were in action in the UK Ilca National Qualifiers this weekend.

Olympian Adriana Penruddocke and Sebastian Kempe took to the waters off Weymouth, which is on the South Coast of England, for six races over two days with both performing creditably.

Kempe finished as the leading under-21 sailor and fourth overall in the Ilca 7 after finishing in the top ten in all six of his races. After dropping his worst finish of ninth in race five, the 19-year-old finished with 23 points.

The Bermudian was pleased with his performance but has his eye on bigger targets in the next few weeks.

“This was a little tune up for me,” Kempe said.

“It is always good to go up against the British boys as their form internationally is very good.

“I felt this weekend I was more or less battling the elements harder then the rest of the fleet as we had -2 to -3 degree wind chill on both days with big wind. I believe the work I’ve put in at home has paid off but the real test will be at the Princess Sofia regatta in two weeks.”

Penruddocke had two days of conflicting fortunes with a brilliant start on day one, which featured finishes of fifth, third and eighth in the 48-strong fleet, followed by finishing positions of tenth, 20th and 23rd on day two.

Those results left Penruddocke in fourteenth place overall and she is using the event to ease her way back into competitive action after having a quiet time since the Olympics.

“We took a good break after the Olympics to make sure we came back fresh this year and we’ve managed that pretty well,” she said.

“I don’t feel too great with this result but at the same time I’m pretty happy with it.

“It’s one of the first events of the season and the conditions were pretty shifty, especially in the last two races today when the shifts were quite hard to understand, so you had to get your head out the boat and adapt to it. I was a bit late in adapting and that was a big mistake but it was also a really good learning.

“We’re happy going into the big three events this spring and this is about getting racing and experience against the other sailors and seeing what we can do to gain over the next few years.”