A sailing team comprising 10 Trinity College MBA students, six of whom had not sailed until six weeks ago, will compete in the International Business Schools Sailing Regatta at Cowes in the Isle of Wight next weekend.

Ms Maeve Jennings, skipper of the first Irish team to participate in the regatta and the only one to include women conceded they were not expected to win.

But she said: "We've got the inside track. Probably all the other teams have got very experienced sailors but we work together very well as a team and that's the key."

Another member of the team, Ms Daniel McGowan (32), who moved to Ireland to escape life as a literary agent in Hollywood, said sailing was very much like international business. "In a boat, like a company, you have a specific job to do and yet also need to have a sense of the boat as a whole."

Ms Jennings (29), who was instrumental in the development of Temple Bar's Green Building, agreed: "It's more like the real world than the MBA." Training has taken place under Mr Frank Wheeler of Funsail in Dun Laoghaire. But the yacht the novice sailors will be racing in Cowes at 67 feet is much bigger than their practice craft.