While she is building up to a fleet-racing showdown at next year's Olympics, Paula Lewin says match-racing experience is a worthy weapon in any sailor's arsenal.

Her recent returns in the latter format - second place in last weekend's Santa Maria Cup in the USA among high-class company - indicates the Island's top female skipper is not bad at it either.

Her achievement is all the more remarkable because of two factors. First, she was without her regular crew of twin sister Peta and Carola Cooper and, secondly, she was using a J-22 boat and not her speciality, the Yngling.

"I just did it for fun," she told The Royal Gazette of her reason for entering the Annapolis, Maryland, event.

Still she upheld the benefits to her Olympic campaign. "In match racing you learn the rules very well. You have to because it's one-on-one and very aggressive. You've got to know the boundaries of what rules allow and don't allow.

"Often in a fleet race you can take things down to the last race and you know you have to beat a particular competitor for a certain position.

"That's where match racing complements fleet racing. It gives you the skills to do that."

Lewin was accompanied in the Santa Maria Cup by another Bermudian, Leatrice Roman, and two Americans Joann Jones and Dina Kowalyshyn.

"For our first time sailing together, finishing second was great," quipped the 31-year-old.

The format for the match-racing event was a double round-robin among ten skippers followed by a semi-final and a final.

"In the first round-robin we won five and lost four. The wind was so light and we (her crew) were just getting used to each other. Also I hadn't been in those boats (J-22) for a while and my timing was a little off."

However, by the second round-robin, Lewin's crew had their act together fully and swept their rivals 9-0.

"That catapulted us into second place and they took the top four for the semis. I raced Giulia Conti (of Italy) in a best-of-three semi which we won 2-0."

Later that same day (last Saturday), she raced the final against American Liz Baylis. By then, it was rather breezy and that played into her opponent's hands.

"We won both starts but lost both races. It was really windy and we just didn't have a good time in the boat with that type of breeze and she's fast in the breeze. She sailed well and was solid. We made a couple mistakes and she didn't," said Lewin candidly.

This performance came on the heels of her sixth place in the Spa Regatta in Holland, where she competed in the Yngling with Cooper and Roman, and capped a satisfying fortnight for the 2002 Female Athlete of the Year.

"We were pleased with that (Holland), especially because of change in crew. It was Leatrice's (Roman) first time and it was pretty windy. She did great as an unknown.

"It's one of the big European events so everybody was there and it was tough competition."

Next on her agenda is Keil Week in Germany starting on June 25 and then Lewin heads to Sweden to tackle the Swedish Match for the first time.

Her ultimate focus this season is the pre-Olympic regatta in Greece in August.