way on Sunday.

Luders, J24s, Etchells, IODs and Tornadoes will all be taking to the water as usual for the annual regatta in the Great Sound. But there will be no Comets joining the Snipes and Sunfish at Spanish Point next week.

"Bermuda is hosting the Comet International Championship for the first time ever this summer,'' explained Comet sailor Gladwin Lambert, who was runner-up to Rudy Bailey in International Race Week last year.

Lambert, who is helping to organise the August regatta, said it was decided to give Race Week a miss and concentrate on getting a top-quality fleet here later in the year.

The Comet International Regatta is normally held in the United States, with Bermuda's sailors providing the international opposition for the Americans.

This time it will be the Americans who will be travelling here to battle for the honours.

"It would have been difficult to get them here twice, particularly in Olympic year,'' said Lambert.

Local sailor Stevie Dickinson is a former winner of the Comet Internationals, and Bailey has also sailed to a top-three finish in the regatta.

Malcolm Smith will also provide a strong local challenge in the August 16-21 event.

Smith, the reigning Race Week Sunfish champion, will be competing in the Snipe Class next week. So too will Dickinson, while a number of other Comet sailors will be crewing in other classes.

Meanwhile, club racing for Comets begins next month at the West End Sailboat Club, the East End Mini Yacht Club and the Mid Atlantic Boat Club.

Bermuda's Elizabeth Walker and Carola Cooper finished a disappointing 12th at the IYRU Nautica Youth World Sailing Championships in Vilamoura, Portugal, this weekend.

The pair, who went to Europe with great hopes of bringing back a medal, found the opposition just too hot to handle. Their wealth of technical know-how was not enough to provide a genuine challenge to the more experienced racers among the fleet.

But the duo can take heart from an impressive second place in the fourth race of the gruelling 10-race series.

Walker and Cooper finished above the pairings from Canada, Israel and Japan, and were just three points adrift of the Swedes.

The 420 Class was won by the US pair of Tracy Hayley and Linda Wennerstrom, who pulled themselves up into the gold medal position with victories in the final two races.

After a slow start to the regatta, the American pair had an impressive series of second, third, second, second, first and first to enable them to overhaul the early front-runners Pauline LeCadre and Laure Fernandez of France.

LeCadre and Fernandez had four victories during the competition but could not match the Americans for consistency.

Germany's Uta Koch and Sabine Haberger took the bronze medal.

Bermuda's other representative in Vilamoura had a tough initiation to international competition. Janice Gutteridge finished bottom of the Europe Dinghy fleet but will have learned a great deal from the experience.

France's Severine Blondet won the Class, with Maria Martin of Spain finishing second, and Lilian Bauer of Germany rounding out the medallists.

Bermuda's three-strong team finished 24th out of 26 nations at the regatta.

France finished first, with the US second and Australia third.