WEYMOUTH-BASED Elliot Hanson sealed silver as the Princess Sofia Trophy drew to close in Palma on Saturday.

Hanson narrowly missed out his on first senior international championship gold in the tough double-point medal race.

The 23-year-old took the lead heading into the medal race after a strong day on Friday and a consistent series all week. With three bullets in the opening series, Hanson started today guaranteed the gold or silver medal.

The British sailor had a difficult start finishing the final race in 10th, while Italian Francesco Marrai took sixth to take the gold medal by one point.

Coming off the water following on the race, Hanson expressed his disappointment, he said: “The medal race didn’t go to plan in the end.

“I had control of Marrai pre-start, but with a right shift on the start line I got stuck on the outside of the committee boat and there wasn’t enough time to reposition.

“With no way of getting back in position I was about 10 seconds late on to the race course. There was only one left shift on that beat and I was furthest right, so in the end not a good day.”

Reflecting on what has been a strong event overall, Hanson concluded: “It’s been a good week and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season ahead”.

Sharing Hanson’s disappointment was teammate and Rio Olympian Nick Thompson.

He added: “I feel a bit bad for Elliot, he’s sailed an awesome regatta and I think he deserved to win, but it’s good to see things are moving in the right direction for the whole of the British team.

“The wind picked up pretty quickly out there. We started today with light winds and a postponement, but it was forecast to build and we ended up having about 20 knots out there.”

Podium Potential 49er talents James Peters and Fynn Sterritt secured their first senior international regatta victory.

Bronze medals for Thompson and the pairing of Dylan Fletcher and Stuart Bithell, made it five medals for the British Sailing Team at the conclusion of the six-day event.

Elsewhere in final day action, 49er FX duo Charlotte Dobson-Saskia Tidey concluded their event in sixth.

As the wind picked up, the pair took the bullet in the first of three scheduled medal races. With only two boats finishing the second race, the racing was abandoned for the day.