WEST Mersea sailor Hannah Stodel and her crew battled to silver in their final major event before the Paralympic Games.

Stodel, along with John Robertson and Steve Thomas, finished second in the Sonar class at the Para World Sailing Championships, in the Netherlands.

A gripping final day of racing on the Ijsselmeer in Medemblik saw the title chase go right down to the wire.

Defending champions Robertson, Stodel and Thomas went into the final day in silver medal position, four points from the leading American team of Rick Doerr, Hugh Freund and Brad Kendall but with the Australian and Norwegian teams also snapping at their heels.

The points closed up even more after the first of the final day’s two races, with all four leading boats finishing in the top four.

The British trio crossed third to the Americans’ fourth to reduce the deficit but went into the final race equal on points with the Australian crew, with Norway just three points behind them.

It gave rise to a nail-biting final race, with the American leaders having to fight back through the pack after a tough start.

With place changes even down the last downwind leg, Robertson, Stodel and Thomas did all they could to fend off the Australian team and win the race and the rest was out of their hands.

Doerr, Freund and Kendall pulled past the Norwegians and their third place in the final race was enough to hand them the world title by just one point.

The World Championship result – their second consecutive Worlds podium finish – provides a timely confidence boost with the Rio Paralympic Games little more than 100 days away.

Helmsman Robertson said: “We’re pretty excited for the next couple of months’ run in to Rio.

“We’re off there in about ten days’ time for another training event.

“We’ll enjoy it and try and take everything from it that we can.

“It’s our last one pretty much so we’ll really enjoy it and smash everything that we can to make sure we do come home with that gold medal that we’re striving for.

“We’ve made a lot of good progress this week and I think to have a silver medal, just a point off first, is really good for us going in to the next few months.

“It would have been nice to have had a gold but to have a silver at this stage of the game is pretty good actually.

“The way we sailed was really quite good as well, so we’re pretty chuffed.

“Going in to the day you’ve got to be in the right mindset, enjoy it and be the best you can be. We pretty much did that so you’ve got to be happy.

“A tight week under that sort of pressure – you’ve got to win the race and we did that so it’s pretty good for us.”