Back after a six year break

The +39 skipper joins his fellow crewmates at the Finn Gold Cup

Seeing Iain Percy's name on the entry list for the Finn Gold Cup is the equivalent to Ben Ainslie suddenly putting in an appearance out of the blue at a Laser World Championship. Once Olympic sailors, particularly those within Skandia Team GBR, decide upon a class they wish to compete in surely they can't just go off saiing whatever they want to willy nilly? So the theory goes at least.

"It is just a bit of a holiday - literally a holiday, just for a bit of fun," explains Percy of this breach of protocol. [Fun? Surely you're a professional man - where does fun come into it???] "All the boys from my team were going and they were trying to persuade me so I thought “why not?” It is good fun. And it is good training for the Star to get dynamic again."

While all the America's Cup campaigns in Valencia are bristling with Olympic heroes both past and present, none contains as many individuals with active campaigns as +39. While some might say this means they aren't as focussed on the Cup as perhaps their adversaries in Valencia, this was a deliberate move by team manager Luca Devoti, himself a Finn sailor, to get a group of people together who despite their lack of big boat experience already knew each other well, would immediately gel and carry across the Olympic sailing and perhaps even the Finn sailing ethos to the Cup.

The +39 sailing team could almost be described as the cream of the Finn class on tour as alongside Percy in Split are his fellow +39ers Australian Anthony Nossiter, German Michael Maier, Spain's Rafael Trujillo, Croatia's Karlo Kuret and Italian Piero Romeo.

When we speak to him Percy is both knackered and slightly grumpy. This is genuinely his first foray back into the Finn in anger since famously winning gold in the Olympic singlehander in Sydney in 2000. Third at the end of the first day behind old adversary Emilios Papathanasiou and Dane Jonas Christensen, Percy scored a 21st place today and is feeling not just mental pain.

"I had a bad day and my legs are falling off," he complains. "It was quite windy again - 14 knots, so it was tough."

Percy says the boat he is sailing is his own. A number of +39 sailors, including him, keep Finns in Valencia to train in the rare moments they are not Cup sailing. "It was supposed to be just for a bit of fun in the evenings, although I never got around to it - that was the plan, but you know what it is like down there. I’m a bit disappointed today but I have got to remember why I am here: I am here for a bit of fun."

So one images someone like Percy stepping back into the boat he spent his life in pre-Sydney to be much like putting on an old shoe? "You lose a lot downwind I think," he says. "Upwind I think it comes back pretty quick. Certainly it is the case for me and a lot of people have also said that to me when they’ve had breaks. Upwind I am going as fast as anyone, but downwind I haven’t got the technique - the riding of the waves. There are a lot less angles you steer in the Star. So I have lost a lot downwind. Upwind I am one of the quickest here I’d say, but downwind no," he pauses "okay Rafa in a breeze maybe has me - but through the conditions..." It was Trujillo who won today's race.

Aside from spending a week on the Dalmatian coast and getting to go yachting with his mate, there is a serious side to what Percy is doing. "It's an opportunity to get hiking again - so it is fitness too! That is the same problem for the Star, so it is a good little wake up call for me. In Valencia you are so busy with the America’s Cup and as an America’s Cup helmsman you can’t prioritise the gym. In the morning you have genuinely got stuff to do, so you don’t prioritise fitness as much as you do if you were doing an Olympic campaign. So I feel that and I feel that in a Star." The Finn being a more spritely piece of sailing hardware compared to the Star means Percy is getting a much more of a complete work out.

Apart from one small event immediately after the 2000 Olympics, the last time Percy genuinely raced a Finn was six years ago. Since then Ben Ainslie has jumped into the Finn and completely dominated the class, winning a well deserved Gold in Athens. However Ainslie is not competing this year despite having won the Finn Gold Cup for the four previous years consecutively.

So in the intervening six years has the class moved on? "I don’t want to be too contenscious but no, not really," says Percy. "But it is the classic mid-Olympic cycle and people are a bit off their game. I’m sure the guys like Ben will come back and it will rise again."

Percy maintains that rather than the Finn being something he might start dabbling in again, this is genuinely a one-off. "It is a good laugh, there are no expectations. You surprise yourself and surprise others as well which is always fun. Who knows? Maybe in another six years! I love the Finn - as a boat to sail I prefer it to the Star by a long way. It is fantastic to sail. The racing in some ways is better in the Star as the boat speeds are all much more similar: In the Finns the jumps are all down to boat speed. In the Star it is all much more tactical. The Finn is a fantastic boat to sail - it is a bloody laugh downwind, when you’re going through waves. It is hard on the body mind, but I enjoy it more than any other boat."

What Percy is doing in Split is something not nearly enough professional race boat sailors do - going yachting purely for fun. Despite having many of the same people around him, for Percy the Finn is miles away from the pressure and responsibility of the America's Cup team. "You’re with you mates and you can have a beer in the evening and you just enjoy the racing. And no crew to see your mistakes!" he quips.

The Finn Gold Cup will be a prelude for Percy to resume his Star campaign with Steve Mitchell. The duo are heading for the pre-Olympic event in Qingdao sortly after Skandia Cowes Week and will then compete in the Star Worlds in San Francsico at the end of September.

After three months Olympic sailing it will be back to Valencia where the rest of the +39 sailing team who don't have active Olympic campaigns on the go will have been working up their new boat. Percy says he has yet to sail ITA 85. "The guys will go out in the beginning of September and put it through the tests on the runners and everything, trying not to snap it in half. Then if it hasn’t it’ll hopefully be ready to wind up properly," he says.