Ben Ainslie was first into the water, just as he was at the start of the Olympic regatta. But this time he emerged from the waves, laughing and looking around for another gold medal-winner to dunk in the grey sea of Fushan Bay in celebration of an extraordinary achievement for British Olympic sailing.

Team GB won six medals - four golds, a silver and a bronze - surpassing the five-medal tallies in Sydney and Athens. It was also Great Britain's biggest haul of sailing medals since the 1908 Games, when most of the rest of the world were not even invited to the Olympic party.

The sailing team are second only to Britain's cyclists for the size of the bag of medal swag they are bringing home. They might have done it on water instead of two wheels, but it is no surprise that the methods, the passion and the sheer steel they exhibited were so similar.

Ainslie was, almost symbolically, first to put his dinghy in the water on August 9, which seems almost an eternity ago now. But Britain were to finish their quest for medals as they started: gold for Ainslie in the Finn class, his third in consecutive Olympics; gold for the Yngling crew of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, and gold for Paul Goodison in the Laser class.

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In between, silver for the 470 dinghy crew of Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, plus an historic bronze for Bryony Shaw, who won Britain's first windsurfing medal. And then, yesterday, Andrew Simpson and Iain Percy underlined Britain's dominance of the waves off Qingdao with a final flourish in the high-speed Star class.

That triggered the party as Ainslie and the rest of the team rushed down to the jetty to greet Simpson and Percy and they were all headed to a bar last night to toast a remarkable contribution to Britain's success at these Olympics.

But the hangovers will barely have cleared when the planning starts for London 2012. If you think this was good, Stephen Park, Team GB's sailing manager, thinks it could be even better when the Olympic regatta establishes base camp for 2012 in Weymouth, Dorset.

“We could easily have had a gold in the 49er class and a medal in the Tornado class and the men's windsurfing this time,” he said. “There are plenty of people in the wings waiting for their chance. We think there is more to come.

“There is no reason why we should not go into 2012 with medal expectations in every class at Weymouth. There will be ten there and we hope to convert 50 per cent. We can beat four golds for sure. We could have five or six this time because we have the talent in the squad and we have a lot of people coming up behind this team.”

The sailors take the glory but they are the tip of Britain's Olympic iceberg of talent. The true number of Olympic competitors was not just 18 sailors but another 15 technical and scientific experts who guided them.

People such as Nathan Lewis, the nutritionist seconded from the English Institute of Sport, who helped team members to lose between two and eight kilos in weight because Park and his experts had identified Qingdao's light winds as a potential problem. No wind means no power, so you need the least weight in the boat to ensure speed. Or Ben Chell, the psychologist, who talked the sailors through the long hours of downtime when the wind refused to blow and they were becalmed on the quayside waiting to explode into action.

They are all cogs in a highly efficient machine that even now the rest of the world is striving to replicate, just as in British cycling. Dave Brailsford, British Cycling's performance director, was first to offer his congratulations as Simpson and Percy docked to receive the final gold of the sailing regatta.

“Dave rang to congratulate us after watching on television in Beijing,” Park said. “We watched the cycling in the evening in Qingdao, too. We have similar philosophies as in their programme, so maybe that is why they are both successful.

“Six medals from 11 sailing events? Not bad. But we are not sitting back and waiting. We are planning now for London and even more success.”

Honour roll

Gold
Laser: P Goodison. Finn: B Ainslie. Yngling: S Ayton, S Webb and P Wilson. Star: A Simpson and I Percy.

Silver
Men’s 470: N Rogers andJ Glanfield.

Bronze
Women’s windsurfing: B Shaw.

Fourth
Men’s windsurfing: N Dempsey.

Sixth
Women’s 470: C Bassadone and S Clark. Tornado: L McMillan and W Howden.

Ninth
49er: S Morrison and B Rhodes.

Tenth
Laser Radial women: P Clark.