Nick Craig

Alan Roberts (Nick's crew) is bit of a star as well. He won the Endevour trophy as a crew last year as well (with a 200 sailor)... A couple of years ago, as a crew, he won the RS200 Nationals and the X boat class at Cowes both of which had over 100 entires. He is a very good helm in his own right as well and is often seen winning at his home club of HISC in various classes - Merlin, I14, RS200 etc

Olympic level appears to need a drive, singlemindedness and sheer level of pigheadedness (as well as the willingness to sail one boat, day in, day out, for years) that most of us would consider rather abnormal. Of course, it also requires a huge amount of natural talent, but I'm pretty sure many make it to Olympic level with less natural ability than Nick Craig. Mr Craig appears to enjoy the rather different challenge of sailing lots of boats stupidly well whilst fitting it in around a real life.

Wish I had half his ability, and a 1/4 of his drive.

Olympic level involves putting up with folk telling you to do things in a way you might not otherwise do it, if you can or have the time to dedicate to it and don't mind folk telling you what to do, then fine put up with their sh*t.

But it's been my experience that free thinking folk driven by their own ambition rather than East German style regimes do better.

I thought the crew must be good and there's a clue to it in Nicks interview, the difference a good crew makes is unbelievable having sailed with one once recently I couldn't believe the increase in boat speed.

I met Nick at the D1 event this summer, which he won.  He seemed a lovely young man but what I really liked was his willingness to share his knowledge and his unassuming manner.

I'm very sure I did see Ian Pinnell in a 470 way back when, likewise Steve Cockerill and countless other national champions.  But they were up against the likes of Paul Brotherton, John Merricks,  Ian Walker, Andy Hemmings etc.  Tough stuff.

I can categorically state that Ben would get 8 firsts assuming the mast he was given didnt break, the sails shread or someone forgot to empty the hull of the waste from when it was used at Glastonbury in the summer