Peter Bromby is ensuring he avoids ?mast confusion? in the build-up to his fourth Olympics.

The acquisition of some vital monitoring equipment recently exposed certain crucial deficiencies in the Bermudian sailor?s mast set-up while he was competing in Miami, Florida.

However, his camp are well on their way to rectifying the situation and remain confident they will be on top of their game next summer in Athens.

?We had brought some new equipment to help us analyse our mast and sail and the results we found with that were spectacular in the sense that the rest of the world has been on one page with their mast set-ups and we?ve been on a whole different setting.

?What it boils down to is that we discovered that a gauge we had been using had worn itself out and our mast settings were nowhere near where we thought they were. That meant the mast was falling off to one side of the boat because it didn?t have enough tension on the shroud.

?So we changed that and we?ve got our mast seven-eighths of the way to where the rest of the world is,? explained the Star Class competitor.

Elaborating on the situation, Bromby noted there were four different set-ups on the mast and ?we had two of them right and two wrong?.

?We?ve fixed one of those that were wrong (the cap shrouds) and we?ve got one more to do. The last one we have to do is a very minor change. It entails taking the mast out and looking at it again.

?On this next trip we?ll work on getting the intermediate shrouds set straight. They need a little bit of tweaking and we?ll be right in the ball park.?

In addition to getting their own act together, Bromby and his crew also accumulated footage of other vessels to compare and contrast masts.

?We took quite a bit of footage of other boats and we printed it out to see their mast set-ups,? he said.

As the Bermudians continue preparations for the Olympiad they will also be paying attention to a new mast design now emerging on the market.

?It?s radically different and it?s coming out at a late stage. We just can?t afford not to look at it,? said Bromby, clearly determined not to concede any advantage to his opposition.

He is satisfied the adjustments to his mast are already reaping rewards as he won the Schoonmaker Cup while effecting these changes.

?That went very well. We won the opening two races which put us in control of the regatta from the first day.

?We had two firsts, a second, a third and then had an OCS (over early) on the last race which we discarded and that left us with a win.

?It?s still early days but our performance down there was such that some guys who would normally be giving us a hard time on the course never crossed us once all weekend.

?We?ve been competing at the very top of the class before this and we?ve just discovered that we?ve been doing some things quite wrong. We?re confident we?re doing better than we were a month ago.

?We?ve jumped to another level and that?s instrumental for us,? he said of the victory two weekends ago.

More importantly, however, he seized the rare opportunity to alternate his crew, Lee White and Martin Siese, from race to race as he comes closer to deciding which of them will accompany him to Greece.

The 39-year-old heads back to his Florida base next week as he and Lee begin their first training stint with Peter Holmberg.

Bromby is eager to see what he can learn from one of the masters.

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. He was the number one world match racer last year.