Bermuda’s Paul Rodrigues and Christian Ebbin put in a solid display at the Typhoon UK 29er Class National and Open Championships in Weymouth, England.

The promising sailors placed 31st among an overall fleet of 91 teams and were thrilled to have qualified for the gold fleet despite having endured setbacks along the way.

“We are super pleased with our results after a very challenging regatta and making gold fleet,” helmsman Rodrigues told The Royal Gazette. “The regatta brought us a mixed bag of conditions with the first day being cancelled due to high winds.”

The pair suffered a major setback on the second day of the event after damaging their mast in the second race, which ruled them out of the day’s remaining two races.

“This made day three of racing challenging as we had to make gold fleet carrying two DNCs,” Rodrigues added. “We managed to pull up a number of spots and we’re thrilled to have made gold fleet under the pressure we were put ourselves under.”

The pair finished 37th in the eight-race qualifying series in, which they achieved a best showing of fourth on the way to securing their spot in the gold fleet.

“The last two days of racing were the final series where we had varying weather conditions from light wind to heavy wind and tough competition with the best sailors,” crew Ebbin noted.

“Even though we were unable to drop one of the DNC from our mast breakage we were still able to gain more spots, and we were very happy with our results.”

Rodrigues and Ebbin were among a trio of local sailors that competed at the event that also included Sarah Davis.

Davis placed 27th in the silver fleet and 73rd overall competing with British helmsman Merryn Attridge at the championship hosted by the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy from July 22 to 26.