A question for all of you sailors out there

This weekend, we went practicing with Nick - Elise's autopilot is named after him. He is one of my sailing heroes. Not only is he an exceptionally good sailor, he is super humble and generous with his time and knowledge. If it weren't for people like Nick (and the rest of the Elise team and Brian), Elise would have been late to the start of the 2008 Pac Cup!

Since Elise will get regular crew this year, I asked Nick if he would agree to come coach us on a practice day. He graciously agreed to help us out. Of course, the biggest learning for me was 'shut up and drive', let your crew sort things out, they'll fix things if things have to be fixed.

However, this is not why I am writing. Nick also made an important statement 'if it isn't fun, it isn't worth doing'. It sounds innocuous said like this, I find it very profound. It reminded me of a few remarks I heard recently.

From a Beethoven, talking about an ex-Beethoven 'I think that he just lost all belief that Elise could ever win anything, and therefore, that it wasn't a boat worth racing on'
From a Beethoven, talking about his old program 'it was a high pressure program. A lot of very good sailor and some good results, but it was very stressful'
From a friend who has raced on another E27 'I will never race on that boat again. I have been doing this for over 30 years and I was treated like a 12-yr old, given commands all the time'
From a friend who helped Elise out in the past finding crew 'do you want to win, or do you just want to have a good time with your friends?'

I have a question that I would like to pose to all of you - 'is it possible to have a fun, not so stressful program AND do well in the fleet?'