Percy's piece

The Finn Gold medallist reports on his progress in the Star from Miami

Percy and Mitchell hard at work in the Star

Have you missed me? All right, all right, I guess not. Well I haven't written an article for a while because I’ve been snowed under trying to sort out my Star campaign, sorting out the sailing programme, the funding, and the body. I am now sitting in Miami just beginning a three-week training and competition period, which is effectively the real start of our assault on Athens.

It's 30 degrees and sunny, but don't get too jealous - there's no wind! We are based out of Coral Reef Yacht Club, a typically grand American club where Sunday lunch rather than Sunday racing is the weekly highlight. We got some seriously disapproving looks when we rolled out the sails on the front lawn during a posh wedding reception. I thought it would give a more authentic nautical feel, but the happy couple didn't agree.

Fortunately though for the first time in my sailing career it is not just me that gets a ticking off by grumpy yacht club managers - definitely an advantage of double handed sailing - but I've found many others.

I'm sailing with a guy who will be known to many in the UK, Steve Mitchell. He has sailed many boats from skiffs to Etchells and big boats, having success at all levels. He's a little older than me, having worked for a number of years in the flower trade, but he's no pansy - coming in at 6ft 5in and 100+ kg.

The main advantage for me has been the inherent gains from specialisation and divided labour - or in Steve's words, him having to cover for my useless arse. For whatever reason though, it does seem that 2 > 2 x 1, when we concentrate on different parts of the programme. For me it's even better than that because Steve has taught me practices that have been useful for my own jobs as well, (these old gits know what there've doing).

The second big advantage I've experienced has been motivational. When there are two of you, you are going to let somebody (other than yourself) down if you are lazy or inefficient. In the past I've found going AWOL from the training a relatively easy pastime to enjoy (mine, Bart, Ben and Scobbie's Christmas 99 Sydney tour springs to mind), but now when you've agreed to meet to go training you better be there because someone is waiting

As everyone will agree (especially the girls) one of the most important advantages of sailing with someone is that there's someone to gossip to on the sail in. It's funny though, as whilst we are racing I am very quiet, I guess that comes from being a singlehanded sailor for so long - there's nobody to tell you're tacking in a Finn.

As you can see, most of the differences between single- and double-handed sailing I have experienced so far have been positive and I think that is a product of: a) the person I'm sailing with, b) the full-time nature of the campaign, c) it hasn't been going on for long, so we haven't experienced the bad stuff yet!




And how it used to be. Percy (left) on the couch in Melbourne in 1999 with Richard Stenhouse and Jamie Lea