HOW TO PREPARE FOR A BIG CHAMPIONSHIPS

Over the years I have competed in everything from single-handers to fully crewed yachts, but for the last 20 years my focus has been the Flying Fifteen, which provides a unique mixture of challenges and rewards, a blend of yacht strategy but with planing performance.

The Fifteen goes downwind like a dinghy, but it rewards the long-term thinking that is required in a yacht. If you tack in the wrong place in a dinghy, you can often just tack back and you’ll have lost little. But in a Fifteen that kind of mistake costs you more.

The Flying Fifteen has always been an aspirational class that attracts good sailors looking for a high standard of competition but it isn’t elitist and it has remained accessible to ordinary sailors thanks to controlled development such as a rig which can be tuned to suit a wide range of crew weights.

The class has also worked hard to remain financially accessible and there is strict maintenance of the one-design