Iain Percy used to be built like a brick outhouse and had the strength of an ox. These days he reckons he's gone a bit soft, what with all that America's Cup steering perched on the side of an 80-foot boat. Quite on what criteria he has based that harsh self-judgement it's hard to know, because he still looks like he's built like a brick outhouse and if you were stupid enough to try and punch him you'd probably break your hand.

Anyway, Percy decided it was time to get back to what he used to do best, racing a Finn dinghy in the World Championships, the Finn Gold Cup which his great friend Ben Ainslie has won for the past four years running. Unfortunately America's Cup duty with Emirates Team New Zealand prevented Ben from defending his title in Split recently, but Percy decided to make his comeback into the Finn for the first time after winning Olympic Gold in Sydney six years ago.

When Percy first got into the Star he was one of the fastest - if not the fastest - downwind. He attributed this to the kinetic skills he had built up over the years in the Laser and the Finn, understanding how to work the waves and the gusts for every last inch of advantage over his rivals. He reckons sailing the Star has made him a bit lazy and complacent, not to mention the America's Cup boat where there is little opportunity for kinetics.

The other thing that Percy reckons he has lost since his Finn days is fitness and upper body strength, and maybe the third thing is the opportunity to go sailing just for the sheer fun of it. A good proportion of his colleagues in the Italian +39 Challenge campaigning for the America's Cup are fellow Finn sailors, including Brits such as Andrew ‘Bart' Simpson and the big friendly giant known as Chris Brittle. Quite apart from the rediscovery of any lost talents, going to Split was a chance to go sailing with his mates.

How refreshing to see a professional sailor throw himself back into something where he has little to gain but everything to lose. Actually as it turned out, Percy acquitted himself very well. Going into the final day he was 6thth overall out of 99 entrants. But that's not too shabby for someone who hasn't sailed a dinghy for six years.

In Ainslie's absence we had two Brits in the top 10, with Ed Wright scoring 3rd overall, 9 points off eventual winner from Denmark, Jonas Hoegh-Christensen, and Matt Howard rounding out the top 10 just four points in front of Percy. Like Ainslie, Simpson and Percy before him, Wright is another top Laser sailor who seems to have made a very quick transition to the front of the Finn fleet. But can he do enough to knock Ben Ainslie off his perch? As I've remarked before, these days to get selected for Skandia Team GBR in the Olympics, you've virtually got to be favourite for the Gold Medal.

We have very similar scenarios in the Finn and 49er classes, with the dominant forces - Ben Ainslie and Chris Draper/Simon Hiscocks respectively - being chased hard by Ed Wright and Stevie Morrison/Ben Rhodes, with these up-and-coming sailors taking 3rd overall in their respective Finn and 49er World Championships this year. For the RYA this is an ideal scenario but for the sailors themselves it is sad that some of them will not get to demonstrate their talents on a global stage such as the Olympic Games.

In a similar vein to Percy's comeback in the Finn - or then again perhaps not - I sailed my first 49er regatta for three years. Sailing with my old friend and former crew Gareth Edwards, this was also my first championship steering a boat for three years.

Whether I'm helming or crewing, it has almost become a tradition for me and the day before a championship that I sail so badly I wonder what on earth I am doing entering the event. The day before the 49er Nationals were due to begin at Hayling Island, Gareth and I went out for an evening sail to check that the hurriedly-assembled boat was all working. It was quite breezy and Chichester Harbour was nearing low tide, with the water sluicing out of the entrance. We stalled the boat during an unfamiliar tack, capsized and found ourselves being propelled directly into the path of a huge and unyielding cardinal mark. With the tide probably moving at about 4 or 5 knots, impact with the metal buoy would probably not leave us with much of a boat in which to go racing for the following three days. I grasped the rudder gantry with one hand and held out my other hand ready to fend off from the rapidly-closing mark. Luckily I managed to manoeuvre the boat around the mark and we got away with out so much as a scratch.

That was the perfect way to prepare for the event. I don't know why, but there have been so many championships where the day before it begins you find yourself falling in all over the place, not knowing which way is up or down, only for the regatta to begin and everything to come together. Gareth and I finished 5th in the first race, in a fleet of 34 which included a number of good foreign competitors. A surprisingly good start, but of course one that we were unable to maintain throughout the regatta, although we did rediscover some form on the final day to get all three of our results in the top 8.

After three years away from the fleet it was difficult to know where we would slot into the 49er pecking order. I had sort of hoped that we might scrape into the top half of the fleet for the overall result, and we just managed that - coming 16th out of 34. Boatspeed at times was a problem, but not very often. By far the biggest challenge was getting off the start line cleanly. That was really the key to our 5th place in the first race - bagging a place near the pin end of the line and holding our lane out to the left-hand side of the course.

Certainly if there was one key manoeuvre to practise, it is getting into the start line early, booking your slot and fighting tooth and nail to hang on to it. I've never been one for queuing up early, which is perhaps why I struggle with this particular skill. When I fly Ryanair, I'll happily let everyone else battle in the uncivilised scrum for the best seats and walk on last to take whatever's left. Sometimes this tactic can work extremely well and other times extremely badly - a bit like lining up for the start late. You can find that all the best seats have gone and you've got to make the best of what's left, even if it is next to the screaming child. But there are other times when everyone in their blind rush to the plane has completely missed the seats in the middle, in the emergency exit rows, the only seats on a godforsaken Ryanair plane where your knees aren't pressed into the back of the seat in front.

There was a similar scenario in the final race of the 49er Nationals when everyone battled for breathing space as they struggled to get off a port-biased start line. We and a couple of other chancers let the fleet start in front us while we started behind on port, looking for an opportunity to duck through a gap and out into clear air on the favoured tack. It worked like a dream and we were 3rd around the windward mark. The Ryanair emergency exit row strategy worked a treat!

Our starts on the more conventional starboard tack were nothing like as successful. I just couldn't stop the boat stalling and going head to wind with 10 seconds of countdown remaining. In one start, I started yanking the tiller so viciously in a bid to get flow back over the rudder that I stepped off the edge of the submerged windward wing and fell off the side, snapping the carbon tiller extension in the process. What a plonker! We spent the race with me sitting on the wing when on starboard tack, and then both of us back on trapeze for port tack where we still had a full-length tiller extension. (Note to oneself: you used to carry a spare tiller extension in the boom, idiot. Make sure there is a spare on board for tomorrow.) I should say, however, that this race wasn't our worst, as we plugged away around the course despite the lack of starboard tack righting moment and got a 21st place.

However, the wet and expensive lesson from that particular start did prompt me to ask Paul Campbell-James and Mark Asquith what they do to get out of irons - which probably they never do. But they still had a good answer. Apparently it's all about the battens in your mainsail - and this would apply to any boat with a fully-battened main. If you want to come out of irons on to starboard tack, shove the boom away on to the port side while backing the jib on the starboard side. Yes, I tried that already and that didn't work!

Apparently the bit we missed was making sure that all the battens flicked on the mainsail, as if they were set for a port tack. Once you do this the boat is much more keen to pull out of irons and on to a starboard heading. When the bow has fallen away from the breeze, ease the backed jib across to its normal side, pull it in hard to make sure the bow stays off the breeze and that the boat starts making forward way. Once you've got some forward flow over the rudder you can flick your battens on the mainsail, sheet in and go.

It's one of those things that sounds so obvious when you've had it explained to you, and yet I've managed to go through my sailing career without knowing it. That is one of the joys of getting back into an Olympic class. The fleet is oozing with knowledge and unlike some people's perceptions of Olympic sailors they are not as arrogant or as aloof as you might expect. Gareth and I definitely felt like the old men of the fleet, but it was great to discover how helpful and enthusiastic everyone was in the class. It has left me itching to do more, in the vague hope that age and experience will yet prevail over youth and enthusiasm. It can be done. After all, Paul Brotherton aged 40 and a bit, won the 29er Nationals with ease, and as I write, perhaps he will do the same at the Worlds in Weymouth.