Peter Bromby is going for broke in his quest to avoid the bridesmaid position at a second successive Olympic Games.

The Island's Male Athlete of the Year and world-ranked Star Class skipper has joined forces with one of sailing's giants - Peter Holmberg - as he steps up preparation for next summer's assignment in Athens.

Starting this month and running right up to the Olympiad, Holmberg will work with Bromby and his crew, fine-tuning their performances.

"He will be coaching us in Miami and hopefully he will bring some new ideas to the table.

"In addition to that we've ordered some new equipment to help analyse our mast and sail shape and our mast performance and that's going to help us a lot.

"We're looking to get consistency in our boat speed throughout a wider variety of conditions," explained Bromby, disclosing that he is setting up a training base in the Florida, USA, hub.

Holmberg, who competed in the recent King Edward VII Gold Cup (which he won in 2001), is a former Olympic silver medallist in the Finn Class. Since that success in 1988, the US Virgin Islander turned pro and counts two world championships among his several international accolades.

Last year, he was the number one world match racer and this year he was helmsman for the Oracle BMW Racing team which made it to the Louis Vuitton finals in their effort to win the America's Cup.

"We'll probably be training about ten days at a time - short, intensive programmes as opposed to long drawn-out ones," said Bromby who was fourth in the Star at the 2000 Olympics.

Assessing his chances in Athens, the Bermudian - now ranked among the best in his class - believes they "are as good as anybody's".

"If you look at our world ranking right now, we're very much on top of the world. Anybody who is looking around internationally and saying who is going to win a medal, we would be in that bracket."

Racing extensively in the USA and Europe this year has given him a solid gauge of where he is and what must be done. There have been great results and some disappointments as well.

"The highs would have been in the beginning of the year when we - Lee White and I - won the Rolex (Miami Olympic Classes) Regatta in Miami and then Martin (Siese) and I won the Bacardi Cup.

"Those were two sizeable achievements in light of the fleets that we were racing in. Both were extremely competitive," noted the 39-year-old.

However, apart from third place at the Spa Regatta in the Netherlands, Europe was not as kind to Bromby though he was heartened by his campaigns there.

"We went to Kiel Week and we finished seventh. That probably was the most disappointing regatta we had except for the fact that had we got one more race we would have been second," he said, highlighting the kind of frustration that plagued him on the continent.

"Athens (Pre-Olympic Regatta) was another low. We led two-thirds of the way and then, on the last run of the final race, we ended up fourth by seven points.

"That was disappointing, you know, having worn the yellow jersey all through the regatta to then come away with fourth.

"It was a similar story in Cascais, Portugal, at the European Championships where we were in the top three for the entire week and then an over-early in the final race cost us three positions, otherwise we would have had a podium finish there as well.

"We followed that up at the Worlds where we were in with a shot through nine of 11 races and in the 11th race we were over-early and had to restart and turned in a 20th. We still finished with a credible sixth place at the Worlds."

Despite faltering at critical stages of many competitions, he is pleased their general form is strong. It gives his team a formidable base from which to build.

"Even though I am not ashamed of those results, we actually sailed much better than they showed.

"As far as I'm concerned we've had our best year ever by far and I am really happy with the way the year has gone.

"We were very much in every regatta that we took part in. We were very much involved in the front-running of each one and that is a high - knowing that we featured at the very top of every regatta we were in."

As the crunch time draws, Bromby faces another challenge - choosing which of his alternating crew - Siese or White - will accompany him to the Greek capital.

The Miami training stints as well as competing in another ten or so regattas next year should bring him closer to a decision.

On the odd occasion, he even hopes to get both of them competing with him in the same regatta; an undertaking which he expects to start at this month's Schoonmaker Cup in Florida.

"It's low-keyed enough that we may be able to get away with using Martin on one day and Lee on the next. That's what I'm hoping," he said of the unusual move which would be forbidden at bigger events.