With the Olympics less than a year away Paula Lewin has made a tactical gamble in the hope of boosting her medal chances.

For the Island's Yngling skipper yesterday confirmed rumours that she had parted company with longtime crew member Carola Cooper and is set to bring in a new team-mate.

Lewin, her sister Peta and the as yet unnamed third person, will travel to a training camp in Miami next month as they begin to fine-tune their skills in readiness for the Athens Games which take place in August of next year.

At pains to stress that the decision had been taken for purely sailing reasons and reluctant to go into too much detail, Lewin said: "Basically, we feel the competition we will face at the Games will be the toughest female group ever assembled and we need to work very hard to step up our game in every possible area.

"One area that we feel we can improve is the core group of the team members. What we are looking to do is introduce, potentially, a new crew member that brings to the team a different set of strengths."

Lewin went on: "I think what Carola brings to the team overlaps a lot of my strengths and so we are looking to diversify the talent, basically.

"We are trying to improve the overall performance of the whole team."

Lewin, who is ranked sixth in the world among Yngling skippers according to the latest International Sailing Federation (ISAF) table, said while the timing was not ideal she did not think the change would hinder her chances of success in Greece.

"Ideally, if we had been in this position a year ago it would have been better but the good thing is that we are going to be going full-time in January and that's a luxury we haven't had yet," she said. "We are prepared to put in the hard work and feel that we can overcome any setbacks that we have right now."

Lewin said she wanted to emphasise the positive as opposed to any perceived negative aspects of the change.

"Basically, we are just focused on trying to bring out the best team next August, that is the goal," she said.

Lewin will fly to the US between December 6 and 10 where she and her crew will join coach Ron Rosenberg.

"It is primarily for US teams because their trials are in February and we have been invited to join them," she said, adding there was one aspect in particular that they needed to work on.

"An area for improvement would be straight line speed, but our strategy and tactics are strong," she said.

Lewin said though she knew the racing in Athens would be extremely tough she was looking forward to the challenge.

"You can feel it already. Over the last year everybody has been stepping up their game, the level of equipment they are putting together and their time on the water and who they have hired," she said. "Basically, no team is leaving any stone unturned and you can feel that."