It has been another great year for British sailing, with bumper medal hauls by Skandia Team GBR in major events such as the ISAF World Championships in Cascais and the Olympic Test Regatta in Qingdao. We had a pretty good result with our youth sailors at the Volvo ISAF Youth Worlds too.

But it doesn't stop there. Looking through Yachts & Yachting's Racing Classes Guide for 2007-8, some quick analysis of British performances revealed we are top of the pile in dinghy classes across the board, at both professional and amateur level.

I counted a total of 32 world championships in the dinghy section of the Racing Classes Guide, including a couple of classes such as the 470 and 420 where there are men's and women's champions. Of these 32 championships, Great Britain won 11 of them! A staggering result, and one that no other nation came close to emulating. Next in line was Australia with four world championship victories, and then three nations tied in third with three wins apiece - Denmark, USA and New Zealand.

Perhaps this goes some way to explaining Great Britain's prowess at Olympic level, simply a strength in depth of dinghy sailing that just doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. Congratulations to all our World Champions of 2007, particularly Nick Craig who accounted for two of those 11 victories, taking the OK Worlds for the third successive year as well as the Enterprise Worlds with Fiona Clark.

Ferrets' Reunion

Of course, another major factor in Skandia Team GBR's success is the excellent levels of organisation and funding that have existed for the past 10 years. But that isn't the whole story either. There are many elements which have contributed to the team's ongoing success since that amazing medal haul in Sydney seven years ago, and few would argue that one of the most vital building blocks to the team's present-day successes stems back to something that started more than 30 years ago.

In 1977 Bob Bond, John Reed and Jim Saltonstall began the RYA Youth Race Training Scheme. The idea was to take the best young sailors from around the regions and bring them together to one venue for several weekends' ‘squad' training, the idea being that if the best raced against the best, then they could only get better.

Included in this training programme were several ladies hoping to compete in the Women's World Championships which was a big event in those days! So each winter - February through to Easter for the next 23 years - young girls, boys and ladies gathered at either Queen Mary Reservoir, Rutland Water, Grafham Water or Draycote Water to train as members of the squad and then compete in the Youth Nationals, Women's Nationals with the hope of qualifying for the World Youth Championships or Women's World Championships that year.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first every youth training, Jim Saltonstall's wife Christine has organised a reunion evening. "We thought it would be a great time to set up a reunion for all those who went through the scheme over the past years to catch up with old friends and rivals. So if you were a member of a squad between 1977 and 2000 and you would like to join us, we have organised a ‘get-together' at the Royal Southern Yacht Club, on the River Hamble, near Southampton on Saturday 16 February 2008 at 7.00pm."

Tickets are £11.00 each which includes food and can be obtained from Christine Saltonstall, 7 Delft Close, Sarisbury Southampton SO31 7TQ. Don't forget to include a return address. Or you can send an email to: Christine@saltonstall.co.uk

RYA challenge to ISAF

Good to see the RYA showing the guts to stand up to a poorly-executed decision over the Olympic Classes for Weymouth 2012. If you've read my blog lately you'll have seen I've been campaigning hard for change within the structure of ISAF Council.

If any more evidence were needed that some national sailing authorities cannot be trusted to do what's best for the long-term health of the sport, then it arrived in the form of an internal memo from Yachting New Zealand's Olympic Committee. I quote:

"NZL is currently suffering in expensive classes (Tornado & 49er) that are suited to younger (fit) sailors - so we should avoid these. This seems to be caused through lack of money to create fleets and competition in these classes."

Young and fit sailors in the Olympics? The idea is preposterous. There are some things that you might think, but some of those things you really should not commit to email, as pesky journalists like me tend to get sent these things. Presumably one of those six members of YNZ's Olympic Committee was not too happy with the statement made here, and leaked it to a member of the multihull community who then forwarded it on to me. Very embarrassing. Not that causing embarrassment was my aim, what I want to see is a revote handled fairly, without all the tactical gamesmanship that came into play in Estoril in November.

By issuing its open letter to ISAF President Goran Petersson, the RYA has gauged that there is enough support from other national authorities such as Yachting Australia to engineer a revote of the Olympic slate at the ISAF Mid-Year Meeting in Qingdao next May. Hopefully, having the meeting situated in Qingdao will serve as a timely reminder to the members of ISAF Council. As they gaze out on a windless, glassy sea, they will be able to picture a lacklustre Olympic Regatta next August. At which point they might imagine how they might want to do everything in their power to make Weymouth 2012 as exciting and televisually thrilling as possible. How about a women's skiff and a multihull for starters? That would be my suggestion.

Multi-talented mono sailor

Now if things are bad in the world of Olympic sailing, they are not a patch on the parlous state of the America's Cup. Unless of course, if by the time you are reading this, Alinghi has come to its senses and emerged from its protracted period of sulky silence. As I write, the rumours suggest Alinghi might even be weighing up the possibility of a one-on-one match against the new Challenger of Record, BMW Oracle Racing, in multihulls! Something for those soon-to-be-out-of-work Tornado sailors to do after all.

I wonder what Jonathan McKee must make of it all. I'm sure he's got better things on his mind right now, seeing as he's half way round the world in the Barcelona Race. In case you haven't heard of Jonathan, he's one of the USA's most talented sailors. He won an Olympic gold medal steering a Flying Dutchman at Long Beach 1984 when in his early 20s. Sixteen years later he won bronze with his brother Charlie in the 49er at the Sydney Games. He's also the reigning Tasar World Champion, which he won with his wife Libby.

He has done the last two America's Cups, the most recent one as Luna Rossa's mainsheet trimmer, and in his first taste of singlehanded offshore racing he was leading the Mini Transat in 2003 until his rig broke just a few hundred miles before the finish. Now he's on his first circumnavigation, sailing with former Tornado sailor and Volvo Ocean Race veteran from Spain, Guillermo Altadill, aboard Estrella Damm.

Has any sailor scaled such heights across such three diverse disciplines as the Olympics, the America's Cup and the offshore world? It's hard to think of many. Lawrie Smith is one, Paul Cayard is another, an American who has been to the Games, come close to winning the America's Cup, and won the Whitbread Race. The first sailor who wins in all three of these disciplines would, in my view, earn the right to call him or herself the greatest sailor of all time.

Now Jonathan McKee is some way off achieving that. He can tick off the Olympics, he's won that. But he has a way to go in the America's Cup and the offshore world. At the time of writing he was coming 8th out of the nine-boat Barcelona Race fleet, so he's got an apprenticeship to serve here, as he would willingly admit. But there's no doubting the fact that he is one of the most broadly talented sailors in the world right now. And a very nice guy too. I got the chance to speak to him just before he departed Barcelona in November.

I asked Jonathan why he has chosen such a diverse career in professional sailing. "I certainly didn't set out to be the most diverse yachtsman on the planet, it's just there are so many different things to experience in our sport, and I wanted to try them." And yet you'd wonder how relevant the skills from short-course Olympic racing would be to something like a round-the-world race. "I've never seen it like that. If you know how to sail, you know how to sail. Making a boat go fast, winning a race is not that different, whether it's around the buoys or around the world. It's the same skills, the same psychology in many ways."

So I wondered where Jonathan felt most comfortable, in which of the different sailing environments he has experienced did he feel most at home? "Right now I feel most at home on an Open 60, that's where my head is right now. I have actually done quite a bit of ocean sailing over the years, even if that's not what I'm best known for."

I asked him what the most vivid moments of his career had been to date. "Those moments when you win medals in the Olympics, first when I was 23 years old, then 40 years old, sailing with my brother in a new type of boat. It's pretty hard to beat those moments. The Olympics has been a fantastic experience for me, although there have been plenty of other moments in my career too."

As for the Barcelona Race, Estrella Damm was given little chance of winning or even making the podium. So how does a sailor who's used to winning measure success in an event where he's a virtual beginner? "Finishing the race. Getting around the world in an Open 60 would be a gigantic accomplishment. To do it without stopping - even better." It will be interesting to see if the Barcelona Race is merely the beginning of a new chapter in Jonathan's career, or if once around the world will be enough. One thing's for sure, he's not missing out on any America's Cup work right now!