Great Britain just missed out on the women's coxless quadruple sculls title as Germany held on for gold.
Alison Mowbray, Debbie Flood, Frances Houghton and Rebecca Romero got to within half a boat of the Germans but left themselves with too much to do.
Ukraine took bronze, only half a second ahead of defending world champions Australia.
"It's fantastic to have an Olympic medal - the next one will be gold," said Flood after the race.
"It's a real mixture of emotions at the moment," said Mowbray.
"We really set our sights on gold, but it's only because of that ambition we've managed to get silver, which is amazing."
Houghton said: "The Germans have done it before, so they know what it's like.
"For anyone competing at the Olympics, just to win a medal is awesome and when I passed the line I just thought, 'right, next time I want gold'."
Romero, describing the quartet's race tactics, said: "We knew that everyone was going to go for it early and that it would be a blanket line up front.
"Everyone was just waiting for us do our work later on but we knew it would take longer to get back in there as this is the Olympics."
Germany are undefeated in the event since they took gold at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.
The German boat of Kathrin Boron, Meike Evers, Manuela Lutze and Kerstin El Qalqili have never been beaten.