YATE’S Mark Austen has sailed to victory as part of the Great Britain Blind Sailing team.

Austin, who suffered his loss of sight 23 years ago in a road traffic accident, was with Great Britain at the International Blind Sailing regatta which took part on Lake Garda in Italy last month.

Eight teams from around the world took part with two of them from Great Britain.

GB 1 saw Lucy Hodges MBE at the helm and as the boat’s tactician, with Austen on the jib sail.

GB 2 was lead by Leon Cattermole on the helm and tactical with Toby Davis on the jib sail.

And both teams dominated the series of round robins over the four-day event. The final saw GB1 and GB2 competing for gold having already beaten the Italian champions into third place.

The final was the best of three legs. It was all square after two races and went into a decider.

The last race was a close run thing with less than a boat length between the two boats at the last windward mark.

GB 1, containing Austen, took first place by less than half a boat length.

The B1 crews are made up of two totally blind sailors using the acoustic sounds from buoys, which mark out the triangular course, and the opponents boat making a different noise depending on which tack they are on.

Sailing is all done by feeling the gusts and shifts in the wind and by making decisions using sound only.

Austen is fundraising to enable him to train and sail with the Great Britain blind sailing team.