Sebastian Kempe and Adriana Penruddocke are both satisfied with their performances at this week’s French Olympic regatta.

Kempe finished 15th in the 112-strong men’s ILCA 7 class and Olympian Penruddocke 26th among in a fleet of 72 in the women’s ILCA 6 class.

Former Youth World Championships winner Kempe is feeling inspired from what he regards as his “breakout” regatta having surpassed his expectations in chalking up a maiden win at this level and narrowly missing out on qualifying for the medal-race.

“Every athlete has one event that you look back on at the end of your career and you’re like, ‘yes’, that event was the event that you broke out in,” the 19-year-old sailor told The Royal Gazette.

“I got my first race win here so this week has been the ideal breakout week. To think that I was two seconds away from fifth of sixth, if you would’ve told me that at the beginning of the week I’d be laughing.”

Kempe secured his first win at this level during the qualifying series but saw his hopes of progressing to Saturday’s medal-race dashed after being disqualified in the last race of the final series for venturing onto the course too early at the windward end of the line.

“I just pulled the trigger a bit too early and it kind of happens to the best of us. I was two seconds early on the line which means I was about half a metre to a metre over the line early,” he said. “Because it’s a U- flag I was able to complete the race and didn’t know that I was U-flagged until the end of race.

“I finished seventh which would've been good enough. It would've put me around fifth of sixth and into the medal-race with a fighting chance which would be amazing, but that's not how it goes.

“The universe had other plans and looking back at the week, I followed my process and everything is looking up. I am disappointed but not too distraught because the best is still to come.”

The race committee only managed to complete on one of two remaining races in the final series due to lack of wind, which delayed the start of racing for several hours.

“We sat on shore for about five hours and eventually went out and got one race in and then sat out there for about two more hours until eventually the race committee had enough and we got to go in,” Kempe said.

Penruddocke, who represented Bermuda at last year’s Summer Olympics in Paris, is also feeling inspired coming off her showing in Hyères this week.

“This week has been a really tricky week with tough conditions but I’m proud to say it’s been my best week of racing and is a nice confidence builder just before the Worlds in May now coming,” said the 24-year-old, whose best showing arrived in the second race of the qualifying series when she was fourth across the finish line.

“I didn’t have any expectations this week as I wanted to use it as another high level week of racing for decision making and starting leading in the Worlds. Looking forward to more.”