In the old days the RYA ran a week's competition as the trials to decide who would go to the Olympic Games. That was back in the days of what was known as Weymouth Olympic Week, and if you won WOW then you went to the Games. We're talking the Rodney Pattison era. The advantage of the system was that it replicated the Olympic Games itself, when it used to be one race a day around those big old triangle-sausage courses.

Just in case you've forgotten how much things have changed, or perhaps you're too young ever to have known otherwise, if you had a collision with another boat you couldn't take a 720 penalty turn. You either retired or you went to protest. Of course unless the case was cut and dried, everyone resorted to a protest, so you ended up in a long queue of protests and were knackered for racing the next morning. And if you hit a mark, there was no 360 penalty. You had to retire. Ah yes, those were the days!

The trouble with a week's competition was that if the wind was rubbish, or very different from the expected conditions at the Games venue, then you might end up with a team that were good for that particular week in Weymouth but who might be totally unsuited to the conditions and pressures of the Olympics themselves. One of the most glaring omissions was when Great Britain had the reigning World and PreOlympic Champions in the Men's 470 class, Nigel Buckley and Pete Newlands. Come Weymouth Olympic Week in 1988, however, and they had a shocker of a week in predominantly light conditions.

Buckley and Newlands weren't even close - they came fourth - while the young team Jason Belben and Andy Hemmings sailed a blinder of a week to win the trials. However, Jason and Andy's international experience was severely limited and when the breeze and current both kicked up for the Olympics in Pusan, Korea, they just didn't have the speed or experience to deal with it. Buckley and Newlands would almost certainly have claimed a medal, and their strong international form suggested it would quite probably have been gold.

There are numerous other examples over the years, where the RYA ended up sending teams that won the battle (the trials), but who were highly unlikely to win the war (the Olympics). Having said that, Mike McIntyre and Bryn Vaile probably wouldn't have been chosen under a selection system, and yet they won the Star trials in 1988 - and to the world's amazement went on to take gold in Pusan. From start to finish, Mike and Bryn had sailed little more than 30 races together, the Games included. So where the first-past-the-post system disposed of one likely gold in the Men's 470, it perhaps brought one in the Star where none had seemed likely.

Despite that unexpected ray of gold in the Star, it's hardly surprising that the RYA have since moved away from a first-past-the-post system to a more subjective, selection-based system. Where two or three strong teams are aiming for one berth, the Olympic Steering Group reserves the right to choose whichever team or sailor it believes to be the strongest candidate for an Olympic medal.

The same applies in the trials for the ISAF Youth World Championships which, with its rule of one participating boat per nation per class, bears some resemblance to the Olympics. Generally, as with Olympic selection, the winner of the trials goes to the Youth Worlds. This year in the girls' 29er fleet, however, Frances Peters and Hannah Diamond won the week but second-placed Sophie Weguelin and Sophie Ainsworth were given the go-ahead to represent Team GBR in Kingston, Canada, this summer.

Frances and Hannah were a new team, and Paul Brotherton did a few coaching sessions to help get them up to speed. "I did a bit of starting stuff with them," says Paul, "helping them fill a few missing links, working on the decision-making process and regatta strategy." Clearly things worked out because the new pairing led the week from start to finish, beating not just the Sophies and the girls' fleet - but the boys too. However the four day trials at Hayling Island was dogged by light winds, although there were a couple of races touching 10 or 11 knots.

Head selector Zeb Elliott and his team went for the two Sophies based on their longer track record as a team, plus the fact that they had finished 7th overall at the 29er Worlds in Argentina at the beginning of the year, winning not only the girl's category but also the Under-19 division too. In other words, stand-out performers at youth level both against the girls and the boys.

In Paul's view, though, Frances and Hannah's meteoric learning curve and their victory at Hayling Island merited selection. He sees selection-based systems as undermining and morale-sapping compared with the whiter-than-white process of a first-past-the-post system. "It's not just about the wrong decision to send Frances and Hannah," says Paul, "but you've got a whole generation of youth sailors who are going to have a jaundiced view of the management of the sport."

Paul adds: "I think we've got to get away from the whole selection thing, because it's all so hideously messy. It's one thing one year, and another thing the next, based on nothing more than people's subjective views. That leaves everyone with a bad taste in the mouth. It should be a simple qualification process. The qualification system can be what they want it to be, but there can't be any moving of goalposts. If you need more than one week of racing, then make it two."

When I put Paul's view about the merits of qualification over selection to RYA racing manager John Derbyshire, he said this: "Our brief is to win as many medals as possible at the Youth Worlds. Given that brief, in exceptional circumstances the RYA reserves the right to make a selective decision. We work from the basis of, ‘These sailors have won, why would we not select them?' We then discuss those reasons, and that's the process we used on this occasion."

John points out that just as future Olympic funding is based on how many medals the team can win at the Games, so the youth programme is very depending on medals won at the ISAF Youth Worlds. Rightly or wrongly, that puts the pressure on the RYA to put forward the sailors that they feel have the best chance to get on the podium in their respective classes.

This was the basis on which Zeb Elliott was asked to make his decision as chairman of selectors. Suffice it to say that the last day of the youth trials is not a day that Zeb would like to repeat. Sitting down with Frances and Hannah and explaining to them why they would not be going to Kingston this year was one of the hardest things he has done, admits Zeb.

But he stands by his decision. "If we look at this event, we were challenged by the conditions. Most of the qualifying races were inside the harbour when the wind was often less than 5 knots and certainly less than 10. The best racing we had was on the Friday when it was showing 10 knots on the committee boat and some crews were still tacking around the front of the mast."

Zeb says that Frances and Hannah were about 12kg lighter than the Sophies, and a little shorter too. "We looked at that, but the main thing was they were quite a new pairing and we had no information on how they would perform in medium to strong winds. Unfortunately the conditions we had were very one-dimensional. Having said that, Frances and Hannah sailed a fantastic event - I would struggle to criticise anything they did. They sailed fantastically well, but in a one-dimensional wind."

Team Sophie didn't finish far behind on points, but the factor that swung it for them was that result in Argentina, where the moderate winds were similar to what is expected in Kingston this summer. "A bit of everything is what we're expecting," says Zeb, "so we felt the greatest potential for a medal was with Sophie and Sophie. But believe you me, we wrestled with it. I really didn't enjoy Saturday!"

As Zeb and RYA youth manager Simon Wergan were both quick to point out, Frances and Hannah's performance has put them right at the forefront of the RYA's attention now, and they will be joining the Youth Squad and working towards qualification at next year's Youth Worlds. While this is Team Sophie's last eligible year for competing at youth level, Frances and Hannah are still young and have other chances of going.

If it is any consolation, they are in good company at being passed by for selection, because a certain Ben Ainslie won the youth trials once upon a time, so that the slightly older and more proven Iain Percy could attend the Youth Worlds that year. Ben, of course, would return another year and would go on to become Youth World Champion. Oh, and he's won a few other things since. Zeb believes Frances and Hannah show the same potential.

Meanwhile, as the likes of Frances and Hannah look forward to involvement in the youth scene for some time to come, Zeb is unlikely to be shedding many tears when his two-year tenure as chairman of selectors draws to a close. "On the one hand it's wonderful because you see some tremendous racing between Britain's best young talent, but choosing who to send is bloody hard!"