Great Britain athlete Hannah Mills has reflected on her ‘amazing’ return to racing for the first time since the birth of her first child.
Mills rejoined the team in Singapore after more than a year away from racing, taking on a grinding role in the light wind conditions of Saturday before resuming her strategist position on Sunday.
Speaking on the weekend, Mills said: “The biggest positive for me is getting through it in one piece and my learning curve just going up after having had more than a year out of the boat - any boat - and out of racing.”
The Brits picked up a 5-3-5-5 fleet racing record, falling short of a place in the winner-takes-all Final and coming fifth overall.
Reflecting on the second day of racing, Mill said: “It wasn’t our best day - we were sailing really well in the races, but we were making our lives a bit hard by not getting off the start line”.
She added: “Unfortunately for us in the last race all the boats we needed to beat had a really good one, and we were clawing our way back to try and catch up to them and didn’t quite do enough.”
Driver Ben Ainslie welcomed Mills’ return after racing on day one, adding that she ‘contributed a lot’ in the light wind conditions, especially ‘finding the best way to work our way around the course.’
Despite Great Britain’s mid-fleet finish in Singapore, the team moved into the top three on the overall Championship leaderboard - displacing France into fourth place by one point.
“It was a difficult day here in Singapore (…) nevertheless we’ve moved up into third in the overall standings, which is really the goal for the season,” said Ainslie. “We’re really looking forward to going to Sydney, it’s certainly one of my favorite sailing venues anywhere in the world.”
The nine-strong F50 fleet will next meet at the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix on February 18 & 19.
