LUKE Patience, the first Scottish competitor named for the 2012 Olympics, is following in the wake of a long Clyde sailing tradition.

Brought up in Helensburgh, he and English crewman Stuart Bithell were selected this week for the 470 class at Weymouth. There are no soft berths in the Olympic regatta, but the pair have surely had the hardest of opposition to overcome. It included double Olympic silver medallist Nick Rogers, who remortgaged his home to fund his campaign, and Nic Asher and Elliot Willis, the only yachtsmen ever to win two world titles in this class.

Patience is a member of the Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club which has eight Olympic champions among its former members – the crew of Hera which won the only Olympic event ever staged in Scotland, more than 100 years ago.

The 1908 Games were in London, with sailing in the Solent, but, with only a Clyde and a Mersey boat entered for the 12-metre class, it was agreed the series should be sailed on the Clyde. Hera, owned by Thomas Glen-Coats of the Paisley thread-manufacturing family, won the first two races against the all-English crew in a best-of-three series to take the gold. He and members of his crew continued to win hundreds of cups and trophies in the West of Scotland for decades, but Hera herself foundered in mysterious circumstances off the coast of Argentina in 1950.

Patience has also sailed dinghies out of the Helensburgh club just a mile and a half up the road. They have some 350 active members and their honorary president is Mike McIntyre who won Olympic gold in the Star class in Korea. Patience was just two in 1988, but confirms McIntyre (like him a former pupil of the local Hermitage Academy) was something of an inspiration. "He's also helped out with sponsorship a couple of times," said Patience.

Shirley Robertson, though Menstrie-based, learned a lot of her early dinghy sailing on the Clyde at Helensburgh, before moving south on the trail Patience would later follow, en route to winning Olympic gold in successive Games herself.

Emma Richards, of single-handed round-the-world fame, is another Helensburgh member, and the honorary commodore there is Stephen "Sparky" Park, a Jordanhill PE graduate and now Royal Yachting Association Olympic manager. He was awarded an OBE as leader of the GB team in Beijing where sailing's haul of four golds, a silver, and a bronze, was a record.

Patience is aware of the pressures. "There is certainly a tradition to live up to," he said, speaking from the Boat Show in London, "and I hope that I can bring another medal back to the Clyde. I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity.

"The Royal Northern and Clyde is where my roots are, and it did a great job in creating the scene for me to learn to sail, but I seem to have been going down to Weymouth all my life, and I've lived there for the last three years.

"My parents have left Helensburgh to work in Dubai, but will be coming back to Scotland where we have a home on Tiree."

There is no comparison now with the era when Shirley Robertson maxed out on her credit cards to fund her Olympic campaigns. "We are so well supported now in the Skandia team," says Patience. "Without them it would be so much harder. We can just concentrate on sailing."

Costs are now beyond the reach of a privateer. Sarah Webb, skipper of the gold-medal Yngling in Bejing, used 79 jibs, 50 spinakers, and 220 mainsails in four years. The cost for Olympic year alone was £380,000.

It was 1999 when this paper reported that the young Patience had, "the potential to reach international level if interest can be maintained". He had been GB No.1 at 13 in the UK Optimist Championships, sixth in a fleet of 120 boats.

That was the opinion of Victoria Park, Sparky's sister-in-law who was then national Optimist youth coach with her husband, Sparky's brother Iain. "Bloody smart ass," said Stephen yesterday.

He had already headed south to follow his own sailing career, "but I knew of Luke, and followed his career and that of several other up-and-coming young Scots."

Among those is Charlotte Dobson, also from the Royal Northern club, one of the 2012 candidates for the Laser Radial, one of just two Olympic crews now remaining to be named.

"She did not have a great world championships," acknowledges Park, one of the selectors, "but her hopes remain very much alive."

Can Britain replicate Beijing performances in home waters? "That was exceptional by any standards, and I question whether any team can repeat that, the way things are now," he adds. "That said, we aim to be competitive in all 10 Olympic and three Paralympic events. With only two clasess still to be selected, we are in the medals zone in eight of them."

Helmsman Patience and Bithell teamed up shortly before the 2009 World Championships in Denmark and won silver before taking European bronze in 2010 and 2011. But it was that pressure world silver in Perth last month which clinched their place as the hopes of Rogers and Asher foundered.

"These are two of the world's top crews," said Park. "Hugely experienced. Beating them was a particularly impressive performance. There is no doubt that Luke and Stuart are Olympic gold medal hopes this year."