Ben Ainslie has won the prestigious ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year award for a record third time. The Englishman is widely regarded as one of the greatest sailors that Britain has ever produced, having won three Olympic gold medals and several international championships.

Fellow British sailor, Shirley Robertson, has praised Ben for being a fierce competitor on the water and for remaining modest despite numerous awards: “everybody in the sailing world looks up to him. I'm amazed at how professional he is and the fact that he's virtually unbeatable.”

Ainslie won his first Olympic medal in Atlanta in 1996 after his efforts in the Laser class. He was crowned Sailor of the Year for the first time in 1998 and has remained unbeaten in the Finn class for the last four years.

The Englishman also holds the record for the most victories held by an individual at the Finn Gold Cup tournament.

Ben received his award at a ceremony in Madrid in November. Britain’s female Skandia team was nominated for its resounding achievements in the Yngling class but lost out to Italian windsurfer, Alessandra Sensini.

Ainslie has been nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award alongside Joe Calzaghe and Lewis Hamilton. The event will take place on Sunday 14th December at the Liverpool Echo Arena. The female Yngling sailing team has also been nominated.

Team Origin, Ainslie’s America’s Cup team, recently came ninth in the annual Monsoon Cup – an unfortunate end to a very successful year.

Sadly for British fans of sailing, last week saw the infamously tough Vendee Globe race claim yet another victim. Alex Thomson was forced to withdraw from the race after the hull of his yacht suffered severe damage.

His withdrawal makes him the fourth individual to retire from the race since it began. The previous unlucky victims of the event are Kito de Pavant, Marc Tjhiercelin and Yannick Bestaven.

At the beginning of last week, the individuals competing in the race had to endure extreme weather conditions, including 50-knot winds. Thomson’s yacht, the Open 60 Hugo Boss, was damaged in these stormy conditions and he was forced to return to Les Sables d’Olonne, a nearby French port.

Following some lengthy assessments of his yacht, it was decided, in the words of Thomson, that it would take “a matter of weeks, not days” to fix. The Open 60 Hugo Boss model sustained a five metre-long transverse crack, which punctured both the inner and the outer skin.

Although Thomson remains resolute that he will return to the race in 2012 and will never give up on his ambition of being successful in the event, being forced to retire was the last thing the skipper and his crew wanted this year.

During the race four years ago, Thomson suffered a similar fate when his previous yacht was severely damaged. Furthermore, during the 2006 Velux Five Oceans race, which aimed to take competitors around the world, his boat lost its keel and he had to be rescued by a fellow British competitor.

As a nation keen on sport, we are all looking forward to the London 2012 Olympic Games. However, a slightly sour note was struck earlier this week, as the International Sailing Federation announced that the Yngling class will not be part of the sporting event.

During the last two Olympic Games, Britain has won gold medals in this event and this latest news has not been well received by the individuals responsible for this previous success.

Sarah Webb, who, along with Sarah Ayton and Pippa Wilson, won a gold medal in the event in Beijing this year, has spoken of her intense disappointment.

The International Sailing Federation has replaced the Yngling class with the Elliot 6m for keelboat match racing. This replacement has come as no consolation to Webb, who believes that she is not “big enough to race” the “heavy, overpowered” Elliot 6ms.

The Royal Yachting Association will reconsider its 2012 programme in the light of this announcement from the International Sailing Federation. However, the racing manager and performance director of the association, John Derbyshire, has revealed that the officials are looking forward to the challenges of racing in the Elliot 6m.

Derbyshire also spoke of his desire for the ISAF to make the qualification process for the keelboat match racing event clear as quickly as possible. Only once sailors and their teams have been made aware of the exact process can “their 2012 campaigns” be finalised.

The Olympic sailing events will undoubtedly still be exciting despite this alteration. British fans of sailing who are keen to cheer on Team GB will have to make their way to Portland and Weymouth when the event begins in the summer of 2012.

This week saw Ben Ainslie abandon his bid to break the transatlantic sailing record for a monhull following storm damage to the mainsail of his yacht.

The Team GB Olympic star, who was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire after excelling at the Olympic Games in Sydney, was not the only one left disappointed by the decision to stop the attempt.

He was part of a large crew which included Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin group, and 22 other people. Branson has been attempting to break speed records for decades now.

In 1986, he managed to break a record which had stood for over 30 years by manning a speedboat across the Atlantic. He has also been involved in several hot air ballooning record attempts.

The group left New York in a 99-foot racing yacht owned by Branson last Wednesday, desperately wanting to break the record which still stands at 6 days, 17 hours, 52 minutes and 39 seconds.

Ben Ainslie, who is yet to cross the Atlantic, stated his belief that the attempt is “hugely significant” in terms of making history in the world of sailing. He revealed that he would love to break the record and his excitement was echoed by other members of the crew.

They managed to cover about 150 miles during the opening hours of the attempt, but weather conditions soon intervened and brought an end to their dreams. Winds of 50 knots created massive 25-foot waves, one of which took a lift raft from the yacht.

Richard Branson tried to explain exactly what happened during the storm. He revealed how “the storm blew a spinnaker” which managed to rip the mainsail of the yacht. Although the crew tried desperately to repair the damage, the rip was far too deep.

Mike Sanderson, the co-skipper of the boat, said that the crew, which included Richard Branson’s son and daughter, had been prepared for tough weather conditions. He is now looking forward to the crew’s next attempt to break the world record.

The owner of the yacht, which was designed by Juan Kuoyoumidjian, designer of Team Origin (Britain’s challenger for the America’s Cup), believes that it will be ready to hit the waters again in just a few weeks and reiterated the desire of the entire crew to “get the record” eventually.

Ben Ainslie has revealed that the yacht definitely has the potential to break the record and remains confident that he will be successful in his ambition at some point in the near future.

The Olympic hero has also become involved with Britain’s America’s Cup campaign. However, for now he is primarily focussing his energies on preparing to defend his Olympic Finn title at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Worryingly for Ainslie’s close rivals, he believes that the combination of the America’s Cup and the Olympic Games is an effective one: “Last time I combined preparing for the Olympics with the America’s Cup [...] it made me a better sailor”.

The America’s Cup is the oldest trophy in active competition, predating the modern Olympics by a number of years. It is arguably one of the most important events of the sailing calendar, with countries from all over the world vying for supremacy and a chance to take home the ‘Auld Mug’. Next year’s competition will see current champion Alinghi (Switzerland) take on the BMW Oracle (USA) in a series of races.

Team New Zealand, who relinquished ownership of the America’s Cup to Alinghi in 2003, are going to hold a race series in Auckland's Waitemata Harbour, for sailing syndicates left idle by the current champion and American challenger.

The victor will be given the chance to compete against Team New Zealand in a final set of races to be held at a later date. Helen Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand, is said to be overjoyed at the news: “This is an exciting development for Auckland. It will attract international spectators and tourists, and focus international media attention on our biggest city as our team […] races against the world's top sailors.” The event will be sponsored by the New Zealand government and Louis Vuitton.

The Swiss team will be hoping to defend their title for the second time when the America’s Cup begins anew in Valencia next year. Unfortunately, the competition has been affected by a legal tussle that is yet to be resolved.

After beating Team New Zealand in 2007, Alinghi upset the Oracle team by announcing that the next event would be contested under different rules. The Americans felt that the new rules gave the Swiss an unfair advantage. A meeting is scheduled for this weekend in order to help the two boat owners reach an amicable agreement.

The 33rd America’s Cup is expected to begin in late May or early June, 2009, but the outcome of the court battle may yet force alterations to both the start date and the venue.

Written by Chris Illingworth

He has won Gold in Sydney and Athens but can Ben Ainslie do it for a third straight time in Beijing?

So the 2012 Olympics are coming to Dorset with the news that Weymouth & Portland's National Academy will host the Sailing events at the games.

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