High performance singlehanded sailing seems to be on a roll. Paul Bayliss has just won the RS700 Nationals yet again, beating the 51-boat fleet in Torbay with two races to spare. Meanwhile, a large contingent of Brits are making their way over to Lake Garda for the first ever Musto Skiff World Championship, where there are 91 entries from 11 nations. Hot favourite would have to be Richard Stenhouse who has been the daddy in the Musto for the past few years.

It would be great to see a showdown between Sten and Paul Bayliss, the masters of their worlds, to find out who is the best singlehanded skiff sailor around. Unfortunately, such is their loyalty to their respective classes that we'll probably never see them square up against each other in a one-design race.

Meanwhile, the older but still very beautiful Contender drew a fleet of 50 to the Nationals in Looe, where class veteran and sailmaker Graham Scott won his first Nationals since 1999, which coincidentally was also in Looe.

Graham was a little surprised to find himself at the top of the podium, having found very little time for training in the Contender this season. "Some people capsized in front of me on a couple of occasions, which helped," says Graham modestly, who managed to keep his boat upright for the whole week despite the breeze gusting to 25 knots on a three-race day.

Graham sat out from racing the Contender for about a year and a half, wiping out the 2005 season, due to a slipped disc. Even now he's not fully fit but his back held up for the week's rigours in Looe. It always strikes me how raked the Contender's mast is and consequently how low the boom sits above the deck, giving the impression you'd need to have a gymnast's flexibility to get through a tack or gybe without getting stuck. Scott assures me it's nothing like as difficult as it may appear, so I'll take his word for it. "There's a natural limit for mast rake beyond which you just get too much weather helm," he says, "so it's really not an issue."

The new national champion weighs in at 82kg which Graham reckons is about as light as you can go before you struggle to power the Contender upwind in a strong breeze. It seems 80 to 90kg is the competitive weight range for the boat. As for equipment, the class is just settling down from a few years of development. "We've just finished a period of rule changes allowing loose-footed sails, carbon booms and carbon masts, a tip weight reduction, so that's been quite a bit to absorb in the last four or five years."

Despite laminate sails now being permitted, Scott tends to favour the older Dacron option. "We've been fiddling around with laminate sails, but the nature of the Contender rig is that it's still hard to beat Dacron. My Dacron sails have won the last Worlds, Europeans and now the Nationals, with three different people. But we're still seeing quite a few quick laminate sails appearing." In fact Graham was planning to use his own Wavelength design Mylar sail for the final day of the Nationals, but ran out of time to change sails before launching, and went with what he had. "There's so little difference in performance it wasn't a problem," he says.

Where the Mylar sail has an edge is when you're looking for every lost drop of power. "I really like using the Mylar in a Force 3, it's very good in the powered-up stuff, but trying to get a Mylar sail through the wind range is the problem. In the breeze I prefer Dacron because it's less critical. There's a bit more going on automatically, it responds well to depowering with the Cunningham, although you have to use a lot to get the effect, whereas you don't need to pull on so much for the Mylar sails."

What Graham likes most about the Dacron sail is that it tends to look after itself a bit more, requiring less attention from the helmsman and leaving him able to focus on the racing. "As the mast flexes when you go into a chop, there's a bit more automatic response with the Dacron, the leech opens and closes, a bit like a shock absorber, whereas there's so little give in the Mylar sail, each time you hit a gust and big wave, you get a sudden opening of the leech. It's not as controlled."

While carbon masts are a recent innovation, the class is well supplied with a number of competitive options. The Wavelength rig that Graham sells is made by SuperSpar, although he speaks highly of some of the overseas products such as the Avant Garde mast from Italy, Harprecht from Germany and CST from Australia.

Surprisingly Graham doesn't believe the switch to carbon has enhanced the boat's performance that much. "There's not that much of a difference, because the aluminium masts we had were quite sophisticated with a long taper, and very good gust response. The boat feels a bit more lively. But the carbon boom makes a huge difference, you lose 2.5kg instantly, and it doesn't hurt half as much when it hits you! Also because the boom is always out to leeward you've got better righting moment with a lighter boom."

The Contender World Championships are just a couple of weeks away in Medemblik, Holland, but Graham Scott isn't expecting a Brit to win the event. "We have quite a depth of talent in the UK, but I wouldn't say we had a hot favourite, especially having just won the Nationals. Coming into the Nationals, I thought a good seven people could have won this event, but some of the older more experienced sailors were doing better than I thought. 

"If it's tactical, then maybe a few Brits could do well. Stuart Jones, Neil Wilson, myself, can do well in the light to medium. Simon Mussell and Tim Holden can do well in the wind, they're quick upwind in a breeze but they can't quite touch the best foreigners who are quick down the reaches. Gary Langdown is good in the light to medium, and could maybe cause an upset with a bit of luck."

Graham believes the winner will come from one of three favourites, reigning European Champion from Germany, Christoph Homeier, an Australian Marcus Hamilton who runner-up in last year's Worlds, and reigning World Champion from Italy, Andrea Bonezzi. Apparently Bonezzi is a bit porky but moves around the boat very nicely despite that, and the Italian is Graham's top tip for the Medemblik Worlds.

Origin goes back to its roots

Good news for grass roots sailing in the UK, with the new British America's Cup challenge Team Origin signing up as the main partner to the RYA's programme called OnBoard. Started in 2004, the OnBoard programme is giving over half a million young people in Britain the opportunity to try sailing and windsurfing over the next ten years. Team Origin has agreed to become the main sponsor of the programme and is committed to support the programme through a significant financial contribution, as well as personal endorsement of the programme by Team Origin members.

Mike Sanderson, the recently appointed team director of Origin, commented: "We are delighted to join forces with a project that is as exciting as the RYA OnBoard scheme. Within Team Origin we recognise that our future success in sailing and Britain's hopes of winning, and retaining, the America's Cup is rooted in promoting the sport to young people in the UK.

"By aspiring to win the America's Cup, Team Origin also hopes to unite the country behind a prestigious sporting event, making everyone proud of our achievements as a nation and raising awareness and participation of the sport. Introducing young people to sailing and increasing the sport's popularity will be instrumental to the success of our campaign. We want to give something back to the sport we love so much."

Although a dyed-in-the-wool Kiwi, Mike Sanderson is becoming more British by the day. Last year he married our own round-the-world heroine Emma Richards and now he has been hired as the front man to Sir Keith Mills' new Cup challenge. You couldn't ask for a better bloke to lead the team, and I'm sure he won't be just a faceless figurehead where the RYA's OnBoard scheme is concerned. I got to know him while working as a team journalist for Team ABN Amro in last year's Volvo Ocean Race, where Mike became the winning skipper by a massive margin, and went on to win the ISAF Rolex Sailor of the Year award.

It doesn't matter who you are, it seems Mike has always got time for a smile and a chat, which can be pretty rare in the often narcissistic world of professional sailing. Things are just getting better and better for British sailing right now, and maybe Origin will be able to help the RYA break down some of the perceptions that sailing is only a rich man's sport. Not that there's much argument about that where the America's Cup is concerned, but if Mike and his team can spread the message that you don't need to be rich or privileged to get into the sport, that can only be a good thing.