This time last year I reported on an ISAF Annual Conference in Portugal which concluded with the disastrous rejection of the multihull from the Olympic line-up for Weymouth 2012. To be fair to the 38 members of ISAF Council, they were faced with a difficult choice - the throwing out of the men's keelboat or the open multihull. The Star survived in a close vote and the Tornado was thrown out.

As you may recall, the multihull sailors gathered their pitchforks, carbon bowsprits and anything else they could get their hands on, and started banging angrily on the doors of ISAF. Good for them. It's hardly the perfect form of democracy, but it could be argued that it's closer to true democracy than the highly political and self-serving nature of ISAF Council. There are rumours of the catamaran sneaking back in if the International Olympic Committee sanctions an 11th medal for Weymouth 2012, but don't hold your breath.

This year the big vote-off was between the women's 470 and the 29erXX, the twin-trapeze hybrid of the 29er. Again ISAF Council had the choice of the future or the past. As per usual, they opted for the status quo - albeit by a fairly close 19:16 margin - and so the women's 470 lives to fight another day. I don't have any huge objections to the 470 staying in. It doesn't exactly represent progress, but it does provide good value, highly tactical racing. Designed in 1962, it can no longer be described as cutting edge technology, although it serves a purpose pretty well.

However, there is a whole generation of female youth sailors who have had a blast racing the 29er at junior level, and who would have jumped at the chance to race a women's high performance skiff at Olympic level. The original 29erXX did not come off terribly well out of the light airs Evaluation Trial held by ISAF in Hyeres in April 2007, although designer Julian Bethwaite has since added a rudder gantry and put on a completely new rig with Southern Spars carbon spar and a square-head mainsail, similar to the recent upgrade to the 49er. I have sailed the original 29erXX, the GT60, the souped-up RS800 and the Hartley Rebel. All are pretty nice boats to sail but my favourite was the Rebel, which I took for a sail with Derek Clark out of Stokes Bay just before Christmas a year ago.

The hull shape is a Phil Morrison design, as indeed is the RS800, but this one is a bit narrower on the waterline so tippier at low speeds. With wide mesh racks protruding off each side of the sleek hull, it looked like a 16-foot version of a B14, except that you trapeze off these racks too. So to that extent it was like an undersized, two-person 18-foot skiff. Sailing in 14 knots of breeze, boatspeed was impressive upwind. It didn't feel far off the pace of a 49er. Then Derek told me, who was steering, to pull the rudder towards me, as hard as I could. What?! If you did that in a 49er you'd be straight over the handlebars. I asked again, and again he said, "Pull the tiller towards you." So I clenched my buttocks (I don't know why that should help, it felt like the instinctive thing to do) and pulled the tiller extension as hard as I could. Down went the bow in all that all-too-familiar and very-unnerving way of the 49er, but as we bore away on to a broad reach it became clear we were going to complete our very unprepared manoeuvre in one piece. The bow came up again and we were out of the death zone, as we so dramatically like to describe that no-go area in high-speed skiffs.

Up with the gennaker, and we were off. It was easy, very easy, and I would venture to suggest it was quite a bit faster than a 49er and possibly as quick as an International 14, because you could drive the boat as hard as you liked. Stevie Morrison had sailed with Derek a few days earlier and he was equally impressed by the boat's ease of handling and safe high speeds, but then he is his father's son so he wasn't exactly going to slag it off.

Anyway, a very nice boat that has only made it to prototype stage, which I hope will come back for another shot at Olympic selection for the 2016 Games. Hopefully LDC Racing Sailboats will be back with the souped-up RS800 or something similar and we can see a proper selection trial for a women's skiff. Whether or not LDC or other manufacturers will want to put themselves through the grief is another matter of course. There was a trial for a new high-performance men's singlehander which attracted boats such as the RS600, RS700, Musto Skiff and a few others, but there was no follow-up by ISAF - not even a thank you on that occasion - and nothing came of it.

Much the same happened in the wake of the Evaluation Trial. Very little feedback and no formal invitation to bid for consideration for Weymouth 2012. Manufacturers are encouraged to spend not inconsiderable amounts of time and money developing boats that ISAF shows an interest in, only for them to be left out in the cold when it comes to making real decisions at ISAF Conference.

Hard lobbying, back-room deals and political manoeuvring; all these things wield far too much influence over many outcomes at the Annual Conference, rather than ISAF holding doggedly to a clear strategy against which the merits of individual causes can be measured.

One beneficiary of clever lobbying is women's match racing, which just edged out the women's skiff last year. Having won selection based on an argument of offering affordable sailing to women athletes around the world, 12 months later and little progress had been made as to how this new event was actually going to be managed. Would it take place in supplied boats, with the event organisers bearing the cost of providing a fleet of evenly-matched boats? Great for the sailors - have kit bag will travel - but not so great for the organisers. Or would it be bring-your-own-boats as it is with all the other disciplines? In which case, which boat? Well, that much ISAF did manage to decide, as we now know the new Olympic class will be the Elliott 6, a three-person modern keelboat from New Zealand which is said to be a very good boat. Well, that's a start. But really the equipment is currently the only certainty for aspiring match racers to cling to.

Sorting out a format, a qualification system for events with limited places, all this stuff is yet to be decided. We are headed for another mess, like the Yngling another decision made in haste and for the sailing world to repent at leisure. Will it attract legions of women into Olympic sailing? I'll happily eat my hat if it does.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. I spoke to more than 10 delegates at the ISAF Conference, the majority of whom were more than a little disgruntled at the major decisions made in Madrid, but who politically are not in a position to comment. Fortunately Marcelien de Koning, who chairs ISAF's Athletes Commission, felt able to share her views. As the recent winner of a silver medal helming the Dutch 470 in Qingdao, in addition to winning three World Championships in the past four years, de Koning's views ought to bear some weight.

She was critical of the current decision-making structure of ISAF: "In the past 12 years, sailing has gone nowhere. In the end the Council will always decide what's best for themselves. The Athletes Commission really liked the submission from Yachting Australia, we agreed with 98% of it, and we hope ISAF will implement it. The ways things are structured now, you can never follow a long-term strategy." The Australian proposal she refers to is a strategy document which outlined a way of defining a clear future for the Olympic Regatta, rather than allowing things to be left to the current directionless decision-making process.

On the future of a women's High Performance class. "I think it will next happen for 2016. If it doesn't, then ISAF doesn't hear the cry from the female youth wanting a high performance skiff." Remember, this is coming from a long-term 470 sailor. So, on to the question of which she would have voted for this time: 470 or 29erXX? "The 470. I wouldn't want to see the 470 go out next time either. It is a good boat. But I don't think we were quite ready for the 29erXX, and I would prefer to be sailing a 49er Minus Minus than a 29er Plus Plus!!!" De Koning reflects the views of many who see the 29erXX as a souped-up youth boat, an afterthought rather than a skiff which serves the purpose of being a women's Olympic high performance dinghy. Not many have sailed the 29erXX with its new rig and rudder gantry, so perhaps these perceptions are unfair, but it goes to show that the boat has some way to go before it can convince female sailors that it is the right skiff for the Olympics.

What about women's match racing? "Match racing has to overcome a lot of problems," says de Koning. "For the first event in Miami next year, the women will have to pay $2500 to enter, which I think is a lot of money. Also, a lot of sailors don't want anything to do with jury or umpires because crucial mistakes are made which can cost sailors a year's salary. To have a sport which is even more reliant on umpires is not that attractive for many current Olympic sailors."

The RYA was vehemently opposed to match racing too, but now it's a done deal, Rod Carr and his gang have moved on from complaining to working out how they're going to make sure GBR wins a medal in an Elliott 6 at Weymouth 2012. As to the multihull's exit from the Games, there are still moves afoot by ISAF to convince Jacques Rogge, the former Finn sailor who now presides over the International Olympic Committee, to give an 11th medal back to sailing. But the Leigh McMillans and Will Howdens of this world may not know if they have an Olympic future until as late as August next year. Fingers crossed for them.

Other British Olympians are considering their futures at the moment. Our 470 helm at the last two Games, Christina Bassadone, is looking at moving into the Laser Radial fleet, while Penny Clark is thinking of moving the other way, from Radial to 470 helm. Joe Glanfield is taking a year out from 470 crewing to broaden his perspective on life, having spent a very successful 10 years crewing for Nick Rogers. Nick wants to carry straight on with his 470 programme, however, so he has convinced old Lymington friend Pom Green back from Asia where he has been running a very successful boatbuilding business to step to the front of the 470. Nick and Pom won the ISAF Youth Worlds together in 1995, so it's possible that these two could get up to speed very quickly together.

It's also possible that Pom could displace Joe, a double Olympic medallist, from sailing with Nick. Olympic manager certainly doesn't believe Pom is back just for a laugh. "He's running a very successful business, and you don't just take a step out of that for a bit of weekend sailing. I'm sure his aim will be to get to a situation with Nick where when they consider their programme that he's made it rather difficult for Joe to get back involved. But Joe is spreading his wings a bit to see what else is involved in Olympic sailing, and he might decide in three months' time that he wants to get back into Olympic sailing or do something completely different. Hopefully whatever happens, from our perspective he'll still be involved and imparting the wisdom of being a double Olympic medallist."

Indeed that's exactly what Joe was doing when I went along to visit one of the RYA's Olympic training camps in late November at Hayling Island, organised by Barrie Edgington who manages the Development Squad side of things. It only seems like yesterday that our sailors were scooping up six medals from Qingdao, but Barrie says that they started working towards Weymouth 2012 from the moment the plane landed back in Heathrow.

Of course there have been a few parties along the way too, including the Skandia Team GBR Awards Dinner and Presentations at the Rose Bowl, Southampton. It must have been tough picking out a winner for the top award for the evening, but it ended up going to Ben Ainslie. All of the gold medal winners walked away with Panasonic flat-screen TVs, and performance bonuses were handed out to all medallists from the Olympics or world championships in 2008. There were a few sore heads the next day, and no doubt there will be a few more up to the new year, but it won't be long before our Olympians start getting serious about preparations for 2012.