As the first sailors in Ireland's squad of Olympic hopefuls were starting their events at the World Championships in Melbourne yesterday, the team from the ISAF Youth Worlds in Cape Town arrived home with a string of encouraging results. All of the three boats sponsored by ESAT Digifone competing over the Christmas period came within or close to top-half-of-fleet results and the coming months should see decisions about progressing towards Olympic campaigns.

The National Yacht Club's David Crosbie (18) and David Coate (16) were best of the five sailors in South Africa scoring 11th overall out of 29 boats in the 420 fleet. The Dun Laoghaire pair were consistently finishing around 10th place but also counted a third and fifth as their best results in the series.

For Crosbie, his third foray at the Youth Worlds has produced his best result although in 1996 he achieved 14th in the Laser 2 while a 22nd in the 420 as the newly appointed youth class is a sign of progress in the boat. Both he and his crewman Coate have sailed two Optimist World Championships and Crosbie was the Laser 2 World junior champion in 1996. He refused to be drawn on Olympic prospects other than saying "It's decision time at the moment."

A back injury hindered Ballyholme's Richard Honeyford in the Laser class for the first half of the event while anti-inflammatory medicine saw the 18-year-old sick for the remainder of the series. In spite of the bad luck, he continued to sail and ended 18th out of 33 boats in this fiercely competitive class.

Honeyford's dinghy background is in the Topper single-hander where he scored 45th out of 150 boats at the UK Nationals in addition to four Irish national titles. He, too, hasn't firmed up on his future direction and may switch from the Laser, possibly into the 470.

The 420 female crew in South Africa of Mary and Frances O'Loughlin ended their series 11th out of 18 boats though just four points kept them out of the top 10 and eighth overall. The final two races were blown out at the event that saw a mix of weather conditions. "We probably would have caught up the four points so it was really annoying that we couldn't finish the series," said Frances who only started sailing last year.

"We're pleased with the worlds but we know we can do better," said Mary O'Loughlin. They counted fourth and fifths as their best results and plan to continue in the 420 for 1999 with a possible campaign in the 470 for 2004 in mind. The Howth YC pair didn't leave Cape Town empty-handed, however, as the international jury awarded them the Prince Henry the Navigator Trophy for sportsmanship. Meanwhile, one Dun Laoghaire sailor is tackling the perennial problem of falling dinghy numbers with a concerted effort to get more people afloat. Andrew Algeo has written to at least 40 current or former dinghy sailors that he knows, inviting them to consider developing a class at the south Dublin venue.

Algeo studied the issues involved and his analysis led to several factors that affected numbers of participants. Notably, the typical dinghy sailor has problems affording a boat in the first instance and certainly cannot afford the depreciation and upkeep costs.

He also believes that there has been a migration away from tactical sailing towards the physical end of the sport to which many people are unsuited, particularly women. He suggests eliminating boats over a certain value, singlehanders and physically demanding classes.

The objective of reaching an agreed compromise class for as many people as possible to join in with in the area will be the basis of a meeting in the Royal St George YC, Dun Laoghaire, at 3 o'clock on Saturday, January 16th.