Just what is it about boats and wildlife? You'd have thought the world's oceans would be big enough to accommodate everyone, but look at the number of collisions that the Artemis Transat fleet notched up with whales and sharks in the recent Open 60 dash across the Atlantic. In the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, one of the hardest core races in the sailing calendar, some never make it to Hobart, not because of 50 foot waves in the Bass Strait or anything so heroic, but because they've whacked into a sunfish. Do a Google on ‘sunfish' and you will find images of perhaps the stoopidest looking fish ever conceived. But then I'm sure sunfish think similarly about us.

Fortunately for us dinghy sailors, apart from slicing through the occasional jellyfish, close encounters with sea life tend not to be such an occupational hazard. But get this. Out in California recently, US 29er National Champions Max Fraser and David Liebenberg were out training, blasting across Santa Cruz Harbour in 25 knots of breeze. They set their kite and were flying along at about 20 knots when out of nowhere leapt a large sea lion into their path.

Coming from just forward of the 29er's bow, the sea lion crashed into Liebenberg out on the trapeze. His knee gave way upon impact as he then hurtled aft into Fraser, who was able to grab him and pull him back onto the deck. The injured Liebenberg helped to get the kite down as Fraser waved in their nearby safety boat, which then quickly picked Liebenberg up and proceeded back to shore as quickly as circumstances would allow. With the stricken 29er crew given rapid medical attention, he is said to be making a good recovery and should be fully fixed six weeks after the incident. No news of the sea lion though.

Girls Allowed - and Encouraged

The RYA is backing ‘Girls4Gold' - a new targeted recruitment drive masterminded by UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport (EIS) - to uncover hidden British female talent with the potential to rise to the podium at London 2012 and beyond.

The initiative seeks to transfer many of the ‘ready-made' skills and abilities of talented sporting females into targeted Olympic sports, including sailing and more specifically windsurfing, with the aim of potentially fast-tracking them towards the medal rostrums at future Olympic Games.

Athletic women aged 17-25 who have competed at county level or above in any sport are invited to apply for the scheme at www.uksport.gov.uk/girls4gold

Successful applicants will then be invited to one of three Olympic Talent Assessment events this summer where EIS sports scientists will work with elite coaches from the beneficiary sports, to provide the short-listed athletes with the opportunity to discover their potential in a world class training environment.

John Derbyshire, the RYA's Racing Manager, is looking forward to the scheme and the talent it might reveal: "Girls4Gold is a very worthy initiative that gives sports such as sailing a great opportunity to identify potential World Class performers and help them develop the physical and mental skills and abilities that could lead to them one day representing Britain at the Olympics.

"Thinking outside the box in this way to try to encourage more girls into sports they may never have previously considered is to be applauded and we are delighted sailing has been chosen to be a part of this initiative."

The female-specific Girls4Gold scheme follows on from the success of previous UK Sport/EIS talent recruitment drives, including 2007's Sporting Giants campaign, which attracted more than 3,800 applicants with more than 50 athletes progressing on to Olympic talent development programmes in three sports.

Sailing is just one of six Olympic sports to have been identified as potential recipient sports for the Girls4Gold drive. The others are cycling, rowing, modern pentathlon, canoeing and bob skeleton. Bob skeleton, I'm not sure about, sounds a bit macabre to me. But the other sports seem to reflect Britain's strongest Olympic disciplines, so it's great that sailing continues to benefit from these funding initiatives in the build-up to 2012.

Olympic Silly Season

It seems a bit premature talking about 2012 when the 2008 Games have yet to happen. But what a great result for Nic Asher and Elliot Willis, winning the 470 Europeans in Lake Garda, to add to their World Championship which they won in Melbourne at the beginning of the year. Talk about being all dressed up with nowhere to go, as it's not Nic and Elliot but our reigning Olympic silver medallists Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield who'll be racing the 470 in Qingdao, with the reigning World and European Champs as tuning partners, biding their time as possible Olympic competitors for another four years. What a tuning partner to have! But who's going to get the berth for 2012? Nick and Joe are not exactly old. But next time will be their fourth Olympic campaign, so will they still have the hunger? Well maybe not, were it not for the fact that there's the prospect of an Olympic Games right on their doorstep. Expect another fierce but friendly trials between these two hot teams.

I had a drink with reigning 470 Olympic Champion Kevin Burnham during the Delta Lloyd Regatta in Holland recently, the USA crew who aged 49 in Athens managed to edge out Nick and Joe from gold in a last-race match race. Having won a silver with Morgan Reeser in Barcelona 1992, Kevin said all he was interested in was gold in Athens. That was perhaps a significant psychological advantage that he and Athens helmsman Paul Foerster (who won his silver with another crew Bob Merrick in Sydney 2000) had over the Brits, who had yet to secure a medal of any colour after coming so agonisingly close to bronze in Sydney. While the Brits were over-conservative, Kevin and Paul threw all the chips on the table for gold, and the gamble paid off.

Joe says he and Nick have learned from that experience themselves, and realise that they could have been more aggressive in the final-race showdown in Athens. This is all good experience for Nick and Joe to take into Qingdao. Even though the last 12 months have not been particularly spectacular by their standards, they have got gold and silver at the two Test Regattas on Olympic waters, and they go into the Games knowing that they have overdelivered at the past two Olympics. As Joe says, fourth in Sydney was still an excellent result for them at that early stage of their career, and silver in Athens was perhaps better than their pre-Games form indicated. There are other long-term partnerships in the 470 which have singularly underperformed when it comes to the big event.

So much of the Olympics is how you respond to the unique pressures of putting all your emotional eggs in one basket, putting everything you've done for the past four - or possibly eight or twelve - years into just one regatta. No wonder people start making barmy decisions with just weeks to the Games.

Has French 470 helmswoman Ingrid Petitjean made just such a barmy decision? She has just started to sail with a new crew, Gwedolyn Lemaitre, in favour of her long-term sailing partner Nadege Douroux. New model Gwedolyn is smaller and lighter, which in theory is an advantage for Qingdao. But starting a new partnership from scratch, with just three months to the Games? That sounds like craziness. Even if Ingrid comes to the same conclusion and decides to sail with Nadege after all, how has the old partnership been affected? Psychologically, can they pick up where they left off? Without knowing the characters involved, it's hard to say, but one 470 coach I spoke to said that Ingrid's decision marked the beginning of Olympic silly season.

Even more serious than this, top Israeli 470 crew Udi Gal, has been tested positive for a banned substance and his chance of competing in Qingdao is in jeopardy. Banned substances for crewing a 470, you might ask? You could understand it for a Finn sailor or a RS-X sailor in particular, as there is no limit to how fit you need to be for all that air rowing that's required in sub-planing conditions in the Olympic windsurfing competition. But 470 crewing? How fit do you need to be?

If there is a silver lining to this sad story, it's that Udi Gal has tested positive not for any performance-enhancing drug but for an anti-balding medication. All that ducking under a low boom must have started to take its toll on Udi's barnet, but surely better to lose your hair than your chance at an Olympic medal. If Udi does get banned for such a seemingly minor offence, he will be in good company. Last December, Brazil's World Cup winning striker Romario was suspended for 120 days for failing a doping test in a Brazilian league match two months previously and claimed he had been using a medicine to prevent hair loss.

Completely OK after 50 years

Another dinghy that must take its share of the blame for premature hair loss is the impossibly low-boomed International OK Dinghy, although clearly Nick Craig has good technique as he's well over 6 foot tall, has won the OK Worlds three times and as far as I know, does not use any hair-enhancing substances. The OK Class has consigned its class history to print in a magnificent illustrated book, just released, titled 'Completely OK - the history, techniques and sailors of the OK Dinghy'. The class celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2007 and this book was brought out as part of those celebrations to encapsulate a class that has had a major impact on generations of sailors for the past half century in upwards of 40 nations across the world.

The OK Dinghy was designed by Knud Olsen of Denmark in 1956 and took off like wildfire as the easy to build-at-home, simple to sail, yet hard to master singlehanded OK Dinghy filled a niche, first across Scandinavia, then Europe and then the Antipodes for a fast, lightweight planing dinghy. At its peak, the OK Dinghy was one of the most populous adult and youth singlehanded dinghies being raced in the world.

OK sailor and journalist Robert Deaves has written and edited the 208-page book, with contributions from Nick Craig, along with the likes of Dick Batt, Paul Elvström and Mateusz Kusznierewicz. To order your own copy of ‘Completely OK', send an email to: robertdeaves@yahoo.co.uk.