Although the gold medals brought pride and pleasure, it was the silver achieved by Ian Walker and Mark Covell that brought the biggest lump to the throat.

Racing in the Star class might be a double handed affair but for six days in Sydney, Covell and Walker performed as if they were a four-man team.

In fact they were a four man team, they admitted afterwards, but their additional crew were a special sort - the spirits of their sailing companions Glynn Charles and John Merricks.

"We had to live up to their standards," explained Covell, who was due to compete with Charles before the Emsworth yachtsman was tragically lost at sea in the Sydney-Hobart race in 1998.

"Both Glynn and John set very high standards," added Walker, "and we did our best to meet them."

Walker was with Merricks in Punta Ala when the car in which they were travelling, on their way to dinner following a day's racing, lost control on a hairpin bend. Merricks was killed instantly, leaving Hampshire's sailing fraternity mourning the loss of a great talent and leaving Walker bereft of both a friend and the sailing partner who had helped him win a silver medal in Atlanta in 1996.

For a while, Walker considered giving up sailing but a call to Covell early last year to share his grief over the loss of Charles, proved a turning point and the two paired up to resume the Star campaign.

"Don't forget this was Glynn and Mark's campaign and I just came in at the end," Walker explained.

"The wheels were already in motion. Mark and I just used what we learned from them. We had to do it, just the two of us, but we were able to draw on four people's knowledge and you cannot underestimate the effect that had on us.

"We both feel that we wanted to dedicate the medals to Glynn and Johnny for their inspiration."

Walker stepped into Charles' shoes around 18 months ago and immediately discovered a bond with Covell that produced an unprecedented rate of progress in the most difficult of the Olympic classes.

"We both always knew that we had the potential to come home with the medal but never allowed ourselves to think that we would," said Covell.

"It is just fantastic that the week panned out OK, we kept our cool and finally did it at the end.

"You have to give a lot of credit to the support staff, to the team manager John Derbyshire. Nobody was getting too excited. Even when Ben got the first gold, everyone stayed calm to allow others to get on with the job in hand.

They put a big effort into making sure nobody packed up until everyone had finished and everyone supported everyone else until the end. Nobody could believe what was happening, it just kept getting better and better.

"We haven't really celebrated yet. We were so tired at the end that we just went to bed so I'm looking forward to getting down to the King and Queen in Hamble and having a few beers," said Walker.