Hot Prospect

James Boyd speaks to Jean-Pierre Dick last year's Tour Voile winner about his Vendee 2004 plans

For Dick the next 2.5 years leading up to the start of the Vendee will be very hard work as he is forced to learn an entirely new and different set of sailing skills from offshore navigation and on board weather routing to sleep management. He feels that his background in fully crewed inshore racing will be useful as well. "I have a learning curve, but I can bring some interesting experience too. I don't know....we'll see."

At present he is breaking himself in gently, one step at a time, by taking the former PRB in the Regatta de Rubicon with many of his regular crew. "The crew with me is a crew that I have sailed with for a long time now in the Admiral's Cup, Tour Voile, world championship or other inshore races mainly like Key West," he says. "They are good sailing people and know how to make a boat fast with a very good knowledge of tactics. They are maybe a little different from the other boats. We know what offshore racing is, but we are more used to doing inshore races."

It will be fascinating to see how his campaign comes along.