As a child, Eilidh McIntyre was raised on footage of her father sailing to gold at the Seoul Olympics, and was inspired by the gold medal pinned to the wall outside her bedroom door.

Mike, who's originally from Helensburgh and who learned his craft at Helensburgh Sailing Club, returned from South Korea with the flag of victory raised in the Star class of 1988.

Now his daughter has made a stellar home movie that will be played time and again on repeat after she and Hannah Mills emerged triumphant in the women’s 470 class in Enoshima Harbour on Wednesday.

It made 33-year-old Mills, the most successful female sailor in Games history by matching her golds from London and Rio with a third from Tokyo.

However McIntyre, who openly struggled with mental health when she lost out on selection in 2016, credited Mike for steering her through the lows to this incredible high.

“Me and my dad are very alike, both extremely competitive and pretty firey characters,” she said.

“And my dad has really helped me to get a grip of that and to control that and he just gives me so much support in the background and calms me down. I think he knows how difficult this journey is, and he's always there constantly to back me up and support me every moment.

“I spoke to him and there was just a massive smile. My dad was like ‘my voice hurts. I've spoken to so many people’.

"They are so over the moon. My poor mum is having to live through this twice and then accepting that it is finally come true.”

Mills, the history maker, seized the limelight at portside, but for McIntyre, following in the footsteps of her illustrious parent was an ambition she’d harboured since spending summer holidays sailing in the Firth of Clyde, where Mike once earned his sea wings as a boy before shuttling his family north and south.

Fifth in their concluding medal race but comfortably topping the points standings, not once, the 25-year-old confirmed, did the 2019 world champions discuss anything less than a golden tour. 

“We've been so aligned on that our entire campaign," she said.

"That’s all we were going for. Anything else was a disappointment and this whole campaign prepared me. I can’t believe it’s happened. I’ve dreamt of it my entire life. It’s just an amazing feeling.”

Their class will be altered into a mixed event for the Paris Olympics. The partnership, forcibly, ends here.

“I think I'm probably done,” Mills confirmed.

“I might give it a go,” McIntyre signalled. “I was so unsure before I came here. I've really loved every second of this experience. And it definitely makes me really want to go on.”

Meanwhile, Rhu's Luke Patience insisted he would down “a couple of whiskies” before contemplating his future following the disappointment of coming fifth in the men’s 470 class with Chris Grube.

The Aberdonian, on his 35th birthday, saw his slim medal hopes evaporate as the dinghy duo came eighth in the final medal race with Australia’s Matt Belcher and Will Ryan upgrading their silver from 2016 to gold.

For Patience, who grew up in the village near Helensburgh and was sailing competitively by the age of nine, it's now off to his home on Tiree for some surfing and fishing for mackerel following a gruelling 18-month slog around the world.

But with only a repeat of their fifth place from Rio, the London 2012 silver medallist signalled this might well be Games over.

“This sport has given us so much and I’d like to see more medals at the next Games, whether it’s me in a boat or us in a coach boat helping,” he said.

“Sitting here, I’ve had half a decade working towards this, and it’s a bit heart-breaking right now.”

Slim odds on a return? “It’s probably easier to say it’s in a coach boat. But I’m not going to do a Redgrave.”

The British pairing began the day in fifth spot in the fleet but could only consolidate their position on a net total of 70 points, 15 short of the podium.

“We were out-sailed this week,” admitted Grube. Heart and passion in abundance, right to the finish, added an emotional Patience.

“It’s a joy to push and compete at the highest level,” he declared. “F**king hard when you don’t get what you wanted out of it.” And whatever they had done, it would have remained insufficient to close the gap.

“The reality is we needed a wee slip-up from our competitors in front of us. And they didn’t slip up. We needed that as an ingredient. But if they don’t slip up by enough distance and points to make up the deficit, that’s the uncontrollable bit.

“You can put some hurt on your competitors by taking the wind out of their sails. Elbows out. But you can only do that if they give you an opportunity and open the door. And they didn’t. They were strong.”