Emily Nagel, the Bermuda captain, has hailed the Island’s impressive showing at the ISAF Team Racing World Championship in Rutland, England.

Bermuda’s five-member squad surpassed their own expectations at last month’s event by finishing as the third country behind the United States, the winners, and host nation Great Britain to place seventh overall.

“We had aimed to make it into the Gold fleet, so to not only make it into this group but to finish seventh and beat the Irish and Australian teams surpassed our expectations and we are incredibly pleased,” Nagel, the 2014 FISU Women’s Match Racing World Champion, said.

“We were also third country, losing to out to Great Britain I, II, and III and USA I, II and II.”

Bermuda’s sailors posted a combined record of 24 wins and 18 losses.

“As Bermuda has never been at the event before we managed to surprise many people who did not expect us to be a standout team and we’re proud of our competitive performance against some of the stronger teams,” Nagel added.

“We had a brilliant race against Great Britain II, a team who have been sailing together for the past four years, which saw us take the win on the last leg of the course with some very aggressive team racing manoeuvres.”

Bermuda’s sailors were exposed to variable conditions sailing in the double-handed Firefly dinghy at the regatta, held on Rutland Water, one of the biggest inland lakes in Europe, which finished a day ahead of schedule because of bad weather.

“The conditions were brilliant with strong and lighter wind,” Nagel said. “The racing was close with some brilliant races with the other teams in the Gold Fleet.”

Also flying Bermuda’s banner at the Grade 1 regatta, regarded as the pinnacle of international dinghy team racing, were siblings Jordan and Jason Saints, Joshua Greenslade and Connor Astwood.

“We had never competed as a team before and had limited training due to the lack of double-handed boats in Bermuda,” Nagel said. “The two days training in Rutland helped us greatly as it allowed us to get used to each other’s style of sailing. We found out early on in the racing that the US strategy that Connor and Josh were used to was very different to the British strategy that the Saints twins and I had learnt at university in the UK.”

The event, hosted by the Rutland Sailing Club, featured 24 teams from Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Japan and the United States, as well as an Asian Sailing Federation team comprising of Indian, Malaysian, Hong Kong and Japanese sailors. It was originally scheduled to take place from July 20 to 24.

USA I defeated USA III 3-0 in the Final with host nation Great Britain I edging past Great Britain II 2-1 in the Petite Final.