Yachting: Old hands going back to basics

Craig Monk is off to Europe to take part in an Olympic campaign in the Star class. Photo / Greg Bowker

Craig Monk reckons he is more use on a boat than just grinding.

Over the past 18 years the former Team New Zealand hero has made a name for himself doing the grunt work for various America's Cup syndicates, but now he is keen to get back to "grassroots sailing".

So when Hamish Pepper, another of New Zealand's more accomplished sailors, called him six weeks ago with the offer of joining forces to launch an Olympic campaign in the two-handed Star, Monk jumped at the chance.

The pair have yet to spend any time together in the boat but Monk will soon find out what he's got himself in for when he joins Pepper, who is competing in this week's opening round of the MedCup, in Europe next week for their first regatta.

There Monk will have just four days to familiarise himself with the mechanics of the boat before sailing in his first event - the Delta Lloyd regatta in Holland.

Despite the short preparation, Monk is confident he can get up to speed with the boat quickly.

"I reckon after a couple of hours up there we'll be almost ready to race," he said optimistically.

"We're just using the first couple of regattas as a build-up. The Europeans and the Worlds are our main focus this year - they're the ones we want to perform well in." While Monk, a bronze medallist in the Finn class at the 1992 Olympics, has been focused solely on America's Cup sailing for the past 18 years, he has always tried to keep his hand in dinghy sailing - his most recent competitive outing was at the Finn nationals last year.

"I've always tried to do as much dinghy sailing as I can because it's just a good check on your skills, because you can lose them in the America's Cup, believe it or not. You just get appointed to one job on a boat and you sort of get pigeonholed to that one job," he said.

"It'd be good to show I have more skills than just grinding - that's what I've been doing for 18 years and it's nice to be doing some other sailing."

Monk and Pepper are still heavily involved in two of the last remaining active America's Cup syndicates. Pepper is a member of Russell Coutts' BMW Oracle afterguard and Monk, who sailed for Oracle at the last cup, is now aligned with the British challenge, Team Origin. Both men will sail in the various fill-in regattas with their respective syndicates as billionaires Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli fight it out for the Auld Mug in multihulls next year.

Despite their America's Cup commitments Monk is confident they can still dedicate the time needed to dinghy sailing to make a decent bid for Olympic gold in London.

He said a three-year build-up is what it takes to achieve success.

"Every regatta now is quite important for us. We've probably only got about 15 regattas between now and the Olympic regatta, which is not that many. If we wait another year, it would be that much harder."