SOUTH Coast crew Justin Visser and Simon Wheeler claimed a top-five finish in the 29er World Championships in Switzerland.

A fleet of 84 highly-competitive 29er crews, from 11 countries, converged on the beautiful Swiss lake of Silvaplana, near St Moritz, last month.

The fast adrenaline-releasing 29er is the feeder boat to the Olympic 49er, in which the British team earned a bronze medal at the Athens Olympics.

Eight British boats made the trek through incredible mountain passes to attend, including helm 16-year-old Visser from Royal Lyming-ton Yacht Club and 17-year-oldWheeler from Poole Yacht Club, Sailing 'Musto' - GBR 14.

The event was highly competitive with all the major sailing nations fielding their national champions - USA, Australia, Finland, Den-mark, Argentina, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

Day one provided a Maloja Wind and the British, Aus-tralian and Argentinean teams scored well. Musto sailed very well to score two thirds, a second and a first.

Tuesday's winds were very difficult with many of the crews suffering poor results with many ups and downs as the sailors struggled with the fluky conditions.

By Thursday evening, the fleet was split into Gold and Silver Fleets with the Gold Fleet competing for the World Championships. All of the British Youth Sailing Squad boats made it into the Gold Fleet.

Musto bounced back from a poor Tuesday to convincingly win another race and secure another three top five results.

Excitement mounted as the Gold Fleet moved into the last day with the top boats very close on points. Musto was tied in sixth spot with three boats.

Visser and Wheeler sailed calmly and thoughtfully in the Maloja on the last day to pull clear of the pack in six-th spot and overtook the Finnish ladies' team to finish fifth overall. They were second youth boat and the youngest team in the top five.

Overall winners were Tristan Jacques and Alain Sign who sailed brilliantly and consistently to defeat the Finnish champions into second spot. British Youth Squad boats dominated the fleet to finished first, fifth, sixth, ninth and 10th.

Evening cruiser racing at Parkstone finished on Monday with a superb, if short, evening. The race officers have endured a tough time of late as light and fickle winds have made their job extremely difficult.

Monday was no exception as a light south-westerly became a very light north-easterly, then died, then picked up to a 2-3 from the north-west.

Like the rest of the season, they coped well and altered the course just prior to the programmed starts, a reach to 54, beat to Stakes with a spinnaker reach back to the line, all that was possible under the circumstances.

Parkstone's Cruiser captain, Neil Vardy, won the last Class One race in Esprit but this was not enough to take the overall win from Martin Pearson's Ruthless.

Mike Fox's Matchmaker II won Class Two's last race but it was Geoff Cross, in the MG27 Green Magnum, that took overall series honours.

Classes Three and Four were combined into one this year with Skullduggery winning the race, by 28 seconds, and the overall prize.

Good news for the cruiser racing fraternity at Poole is the announcement this week that Parkstone Yacht Club will join forces with Poole YC to create a bigger and better Spring Series.

Running for six weeks from the middle of March, the series will provide racing in the bay for the larger cruisers, while small yachts and R19s will start from Poole's line.