I spoke to Shirley Robertson who was back at home in Cowes, fresh from her victory in the Yngling class at the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma. After an indifferent start in this newest of Olympic classes, the Europe gold medallist seems to be getting her act together with crew Inga Leask and Sarah Ayton.

Their appointment of Ian Walker as coach must be a huge boost to the campaign. As someone who made the transition from top 470 crew to top Star helm, there can be few people more qualified to help a dinghy sailor like Shirley make the switch to a heavy keelboat like the Yngling. As Shirley is discovering, the race craft is very different, and she says Ian has been great at pointing out what is and isn't possible. "You can't just stick your nose in at the leeward mark and expect to come out in a good position," admits Shirley. "You've got to keep the momentum on. And clear air is crucial, it's everything in these boats." The problem being that you can't just put in a couple of quick tacks to get out of dirty air like you can in the Europe.

Technical conundrum

Shirley says Ian is helping eliminate "all the stupid things we do around the race course", and also offering good technical input on gear selection. For the time being, Shirley and crew have settled on a Borresen hull and a Proctor mast, but they are testing a huge variety of sails, from Doyle, Quantum and North. "It's the biggest area, and one where we've got a lot of work to do yet."

Whilst the boat, which looks in many ways like a mini-Soling, is reasonably one-design, Shirley says consistent speed is proving very elusive. "Sometimes, just one turn on the shroud adjusters is the difference between going fast and slow," she says. But Shirley has been through huge technical development programmes before in the Europe, so she will doubtless get on top of these issues.

Something very new for her, however, is the whole team aspect, but she's loving it. "When we learn as a team it's so much more rewarding, because you've got someone to share it with." Now the aim is to find a way of dividing up the tasks between the three of them. "The goal is to free up as much of my time to steer and focus on speed. Downwind Sarah does tactics, and Inga trims the kite. Upwind Inga handles course management, while Sarah does most of the looking around."

The big goal for the season is a podium position at the Worlds in Cadiz, which would get the team selected for the Games without further need to do a Weymouth trial. Success in Palma suggests that is very achievable, although a lot of the big names from other parts of women's sailing stand in their way, particularly some of Shirley's old rivals in the Europe such as Denmark's Dorte Jensen.

The right stuff?

What I wanted to know, though, was whether Shirley was enjoying sailing the boat. "You enjoy anything when you're winning," she said, neatly sidestepping my question, although she did go on to add: "At the time when the boat was selected, we all looked at it and thought how slow and boring it was. But I look at it now, and it's a real challenge. Physically it's a challenge - I certainly couldn't trim the spinnaker. And it's technically difficult to sail. It has all the right qualities for an Olympic class. In the end, it doesn't matter what you choose, people will sail it if it is an Olympic class."

To some extent, Shirley is right, but I think an Olympic class should be more than that, particularly the women's classes. Since women got their own racing classes beginning with the 470 at the Seoul Games in 1988, there has not exactly been a stampede of women into Olympic sailing. The 470 and the Europe have maintained a healthy but not outstanding level of interest. And the sheer logistics of running a keelboat are hardly likely to make the Yngling a big seller.

Olympic philosophising

I suppose the debate about what classes should represent our sport at the Olympics depends on what you believe the aims of the regatta should be. I am sure most people would agree that a fundamental aim of the Olympics is to put the sailors through a thrilling and testing competition that eventually rewards the best sailor with the medals.

But aside from being a top-quality test of sailing skills, this is the sport's one chance every four years to showcase itself to the world. Whether or not you think that is an important consideration for ISAF when they select the classes is up for discussion. My own view is that this is too important a consideration to ignore, and wherever possible the Olympic event and the classes involved should do everything they can to present an attractive shop window to the TV audience, particularly the younger viewers who might be sufficiently inspired to take up the sport themselves one day.

This is not such a hard thing to ask. Because what looks good to a TV audience is often also a lot of fun to sail in its own right - it's a win-win for sailors and spectators. The 49er is a great case in point. Here is a boat that people choose to sail regardless of its Olympic status, and here is a boat that has stage presence - it looks exciting to the non-sailor. The conversion of the Tornado from the old configuration to its new, souped-up, twin-trapeze, gennaker mode is another step in the right direction, in terms of providing the sailors with a boat that's fun and challenging to sail, and that will also serve as a thrilling advertisement for the sport to the mass global TV audience.

Class war

Other classes deserve Olympic status for different reasons. Was there ever a more perfect Olympic class than the Laser, for example? Cheap, widely accessible, easily transportable, and demanding of the highest levels of athleticism and sailing skill. The Star just about merits a spot for its long association with the Olympics and its ability to attract the biggest names in sailing, and it has undoubted grace and screen presence. But I'm not sure the grand old lady of Olympic sailing would merit a chance of being selected if it were starting from scratch. It is expensive and unashamedly elitist, and very difficult to transport.

The logistics, I suppose, are an inevitable problem for any keelboat class. But if you're going to choose a keelboat you might as well make it one that people would actually want to sail if there wasn't the prospect of a medal waiting at the end of the campaign. You could say that of the Star, with its faithful global following, but it could hardly be said of the Yngling. Will Shirley continue to sail the Yngling after she has retired from Olympic sailing, for the sheer pleasure of it? I don't think so. For me, this is the litmus test of any Olympic class. Boats like the Finn, Star, Laser and 49er have won sufficient admiration and loyalty from their sailors that these classes will continue to thrive long after they have been retired from Olympic duty.

Vested interests

Anyway, this whole discussion is moot, unless ISAF decides to radically alter its method of selection for Olympic classes. Whilst endless committee meetings between numerous delegates and back-room lobbying and deal-brokering continue to dominate proceedings at the post-Olympic-cycle ISAF Conference, we can't expect much to change. The trouble is that many of the people with vested commercial interests, such as the boatbuilders, sailmakers and coaches, are the people who select the same classes time and time again. In any case, making these decisions four years before the next Games allows little time for a new class to gain a sufficient foothold around the world to be taken seriously as a new Olympic class.

Why instead doesn't ISAF select the classes six years before their participation in an Olympics? And why doesn't it learn from the open selection process that took place at Lake Garda seven years ago, when various boatbuilders and classes came to compete for the attentions of a group of sailors who were there to select the most suitable high-performance twin-trapeze class? For a week, they tested boats like the Laser 5000, an International 14, a twin-trapeze Flying Dutchman and a few other long-forgotten boats such as the Nautivela Jet. But the one that stood out was Julian Bethwaite's 49er, and this was the process that ultimately led to the 49er's selection as an Olympic class.

Let the sailors decide

If ISAF, six years out from the Games in question, were to put out a brief for a new Olympic class - say, a women's keelboat, one-design, three- or four-person, easily transportable - then boatbuilders and classes could develop their bid for selection at a Garda-style, sailor-led trial a year or two later. Then we would see the Yngling pitched against other possible candidates such as a J/22, Sonar or RS K6, for example. If the sailors favoured the Yngling, great! At least they had a say in its selection rather than having it foisted upon them by 57 old farts, if you'll pardon Will Carling's apt expression.

Of course, we're too late for next time already. The boats for Beijing 2008 will be selected by the same incomprehensible and ultimately unsatisfactory process at the ISAF Conference in November 2004. But go on, ISAF, prove me wrong. You've got a year and half to have a big rethink and work out a different strategy. It's not like sailing can afford to be too complacent about these things. You might think that in Jacques Rogge, Juan Samaranch's successor as IOC president and a former Finn Olympic representative for Belgium, that our sport had a sugar daddy with the ability to pull strings on our sport's behalf. But a recent report earmarked sailing - and most specifically the keelboat classes - as being one of a number of sports that should be cut back for 2008.

Relationships between ISAF chief Paul Henderson and some of the Olympic classes, notably the Finn and Star, couldn't be much worse right now. There have been some almighty rows going on behind the scenes about the method of deciding entries for the upcoming multi-class Olympic World Championship in Cadiz this September. It seems like nobody's too happy with the status quo in Olympic sailing at the moment, so what an ideal time to tear up the rule book and come up with an Olympic class selection process that reflects the needs of the sailors, rather than the political and commercial interests of some ISAF conference delegates.