THE full line-up of the British Olympic Sailing team gathered at Portland Marina to rally home support ahead of their last major event before the Games.

This Bank Holiday Monday, the world’s best sailors will begin racing at Skandia Sail for Gold regatta – the last competition on Weymouth and Portland’s waters before the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Borough residents and visitors are being invited to attend the five-day regatta, hosted at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, and show their support for the home team.

It is the last chance members of the public will have to mingle with the sailors at the London 2012 venue before it goes under security lockdown for the big event.

RYA Olympic manager Stephen Park, known as Sparky, said: “Skandia Sail for Gold is going to be a fantastic event this year – 716 sailors and 517 boats.

“It will almost certainly include the entrants we can expect to see at the Games.

“It’s not quite as big as last year’s event as most countries have completed a lot of their Olympic selection but it’s still twice the size of the Olympic Games regatta.

“It’s a great opportunity for us and visiting teams to have bit of a dry run for the Olympic Games itself.”

He added: “Today is the first day we’ve had all of our selected Olympic team in one place.

“The last members were only selected recently – others have been competing at World Championship events abroad with several successes – including Ben being named Finn World Cup champion and Hannah and Saskia becoming the first ever women 470 World Champions for Britain.

“At Sail for Gold the major difference between that and the Olympics is the venue and regatta is far more open to the public than the Games itself when the majority of this area is going to be shut down.

“Hopefully during the course of Sail for Gold we’ll be able to encourage plenty of local support, get the locals and the country behind the home team as we run into the last 50 days to the Opening Ceremony of the Games themselves.”

Yesterday, marked Laser Radial sailor Ali Young’s 25th birthday and the team sang happy birthday and presented her with a cake.

Stevie Morrison, who helms the 49er high-performance Skiff with crewmate Ben Rhodes, paid tribute to his teammates, particularly Ben Ainslie, who is striving for a fourth historic gold this summer.

He said: “People are going to be talking about people like Ben Ainslie in 50 years’ time.”