Bermuda coach Paul Doughty has given the Island's RenaissanceRe Junior Gold Cup sailors the proverbial thumbs-up following an impressive display during this week's regatta.This year saw Bermuda's youth sailors compete against arguably the most formidable Junior Gold Cup fleets ever assembled in conditions nothing shy of challenging.“This was a very demanding regatta,” Doughty said. “Every day we had winds over 20 knots and big seas, which was really challenging for the little ones.”Antonio Bailey placed a creditable 12th overall and was the highest local male finisher followed by Macai Joell (14th) and Rory Caslin (16th). Ceci Wollman topped the local girls and finished 18th overall.Overall, Doughty was satisfied with Bermuda's performance and reckoned his youngsters would have gained invaluable experience during the competition that will bode well for their development. But he admitted there's still room for growth.“In a development class you look for high points in races,” he said. “Some of the younger ones were way up there at the first windward mark doing really well. However, putting a whole race together is another story.“But the older, bigger sailors like Machai and –Antonio, in particular, showed a lot of promise in a very difficult fleet.”Winning this year's Junior Gold Cup was American Wade Waddell followed in second and third by Finland's Astrid Still and Poland's Martyna Mik.“I would rank this year as the strongest field of foreign sailors collectively that I've seen and hats off to Wade,” Doughty said.Waddell led the regatta over all four days and admitted that he protected his lead yesterday by banking on second place finisher Astrid Still of Finland, who was also the top girl sailor of the –overall event.“In some ways I should have sailed my own race but I thought I should also protect my lead and ‘sit' on Astrid,” Waddell said.“I was focusing a lot on that today."