NEVER has the time been so ripe for Bermuda to grab a medal at the Olympics.

"It's ready for the picking," said Olympic Star sailor Peter Bromby who recently returned to Bermuda from a six-week trip which involved competing on the Olympic course in Athens during a pre-Olympic test regatta, the World Championships in Spain and the European Championships in Portugal.

"After seeing the course and conditions in Athens I think the time for Bermuda to win a medal at the 2004 Olympics is ripe - it is ready for the picking. It is just a matter of how we spend the next 12 months doing the best we can to be the best we can. We have been concentrating for the past three years towards competing in Athens. And I am very encouraged because I do not think it has ever been as good as it is right now to win a medal. Everything is primed - it is not going to get any better than this."

Bromby finished just out of the medals in fourth place at the pre-Olympic test regatta and then went on to place sixth in both the European Championships and World Championships.

Noting that his main focus for the six-week trip was to check out the Olympic course and the conditions and also to try and win the Worlds, Bromby said he was "quite happy" with the way things went.

One thing that he was very happy about was finding that the course for the Olympics is relatively short in comparison to other top regattas and also the fact that the wind conditions "plays right into our hands".

He said: "We found the breeze came from the north off the land and if we see conditions like that during the Games next year it will really play into our hands. And there is no reason to think that we will not see conditions like that. We found it was similar to the Great Sound where we sail a lot - because the wind is coming off the land it oscillates a lot. Actually it is even more violent than the Great Sound - it is more like Hamilton Harbour. And I think that we see more of those kind of conditions than many of the other sailors out there who we will be competing against next year - and that can only be very good for us. The (wind) velocity goes up and down quite a bit as it takes paths around the mountains."

And the wind speed also suits the Bermudians. "The wind speed was about average - it was lighter than what we sail in most of the time so there again it plays into our hands. We become a top 10 team at 18 knots and below 18 knots we become a top five team."And the course size is also to Bromby's liking. "The course is smaller and again this plays into our hands. The guys from other countries who are doing this full time are fitter than we are and they are also smaller skippered teams. We tend to a bit abnormal in that I will be the biggest skipper in the Games. With the other teams the crews are really big and the skippers tend to be smaller. Normally a course is about two and a quarter miles on the first leg. We usually come off the start line in fantastic shape but by the time we get to the last half mile of the first windward leg the other boats are starting to pull us back. But that is not the case on this Olympic course because the first beat is only about a mile. That is a very big difference."

Before going over to Athens, Bromby was hoping to sort a number of things out - get someone local to help them, find a place to stay near the course and also find out what their average day would be like in terms of time.

But some things did not go according to plan.

"We are not sure where we will be living. We also found it very difficult to find someone there that could give us the time of our average day. We were trying to paint a picture of what our average day would be like next year but found it difficult to get someone who could tell us that it would take, for instance, 20 minutes by rail to get to the marina. We wanted to get someone who could tell us that it would take a certain amount of time to get from doorstep to doorstep - no one seemed to know. A lot of the problems are due to the fact that they are building a new rail system so there is that uncertainty. Also the Olympic organisers are having problems with environmentalists - they are constantly finding ruins where they are doing excavations. It is humbugging the whole programme but they are confident they will get it sorted out - they have to or the whole thing could come off the wheels. But I feel that they will be ready. Unfortunately right now they are running into delays and consequently no one can tell us many things."

As far a accommodations are concerned, Bromby would have been very happy to stay where he and crew Lee White stayed this time around. "The place where we were was about 115 euros a night and it was within three or four minutes of the sailing venue. Perfect right? However we found that the Japanese baseball team have rented it for 500 euros a night! And they have rented the whole place! This is the type of thing that has been going on and so it is a bit worrying that no one can pinpoint what our day is going to look like."

While Bromby didn't get someone local who would help the team full time, he did make some contacts. "Timmy (Patton) was over there before us and he made some contacts for us and we strengthened our relationship with the Greece Star team and there is also another guy over there and he has been very friendly to us - I feel that he is a guy I can call on for some favours," said Bromby.

After the 11 races in the pre-Olympic regatta, Bromby said that although they finished in fourth place, the gold medal "would not have been out of our reach".

He added: "We rolled the dice and I think it was a bigger gamble than I would have prepared to take this time next year. What we want to do next year is solidify a medal before we start worrying about what colour it is going to be. In this case we ended up out of the medals trying to win the gold."

And although the Bermudian sailors are used to the heat, Bromby said Greece was like having a "hair dryer being blow on you all day". He said: "It was very hot - about 105 degrees every day."

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RED TAPE

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And not surprisingly the Bermuda Star sailors ran into the red tape normally associated with the Olympics. "The Olympic venue is very, very big which is what you would expect. To walk from one side of the Olympic venue to the other takes about 20 minutes. They seemed to put one office in one corner and the other office in the corner the farthest away.

"We wanted to rent two (push) bikes. But we had not signed up by the assigned date which we knew nothing about. There was a lot of red tape to get by that but in the end we did. And you really need that bike to get around. You would be surprised how some things that are so simple can be so wrapped up in red tape.

"But while in some way big countries have so much support staff, being a small country like Bermuda can have its advantages. With a lot of support staff they are all trying to justify their existance while we only have a few people and can make a decision right there and then. So there is some benefits to being from a small country - some things can be done far more quickly."

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CHANGE OF CREW

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After the pre-Olympic test regatta, Bromby and crew Lee White had to hustle to make it to Portugal for the European Championships.

"We didn't have any rest whatsoever. With the logistics it would have been too tight for me to drive by myself to Portugal so Lee (White) helped me and then Martin Siese met us in Portugal. We finished the event in Athens and then packed the boat up that night and the next morning at about 8 a.m. we set off for the a three-hour drive to the ferry. The ferry ride was 18 hours and then it was another day and a half drive to the Europeans. We had a day to get the boat back together and then we were competing once again."

Bromby has been using Lee White and Martin Siese as crew in the numerous regattas leading up to the 2004 Olympics and he said it has not been decided who will accompany him to Athens next year.

"We have not made a decision as to who will be the crew in the Olympics - whether it is Martin or Lee. We will have to make that decision over the next five months. The three of us will be sitting down to decide and we will probably have to do that over the next five or six months."

And during the next five or six months, Bromby, White and Siese will be making regular one-week trips every month to train in Miami.

Bromby said: "We all run our own businesses so when we do train here - which we continue to do - we cannot give our undivided attention to it. So we will go to Miami and get some good partners to train against and it should work out a lot better."

Of the World Championships, Bromby said: "If you read the official reports from the ISAF point a view it was a very successful regatta. From a competitors' point of view I would have much preferred to have had our own World Championships - just for the Star fleet - separated from everyone else. The reality of it was they had one crane putting over 83 (Star) boats for an event."

And one very bizarre moment stands out in Bromby's mind.

"One Star sailor was getting his boat put over by the crane and when the boat was up in the air, the guy operating the crane said it was time for his siesta! It would have only take a few more minutes to put the boat in the water but this guy said it was two o'clock and that he would see (the sailor) at four. So the boat stayed up there hanging for two hours! That kind of thing wouldn't have happened if the class had run its own championship. The Worlds were just too big with all the classes - much more spread out - and everything takes that much longer."