LUKE Patience is aptly named indeed. Just when the 29-year-old Scot, a silver medalist at London 2012 in the 470 sailing class with Stuart Bithell, was coasting serenely towards an opportunity to go one better in Rio, his medal bid ran into some unforeseen choppy waters.

Back in December, his yachting partner Elliot Willis was diagnosed with bowel cancer, hitting everything the pair were trying to achieve for six. They were formally de-selected, leaving Patience casting around around for an alternative collaborator at short notice to keep his dream tacking in the right direction.

Fortunately, in the intimate world of British sailing, one was close at hand. Chris Grube, an Englishman who had actually embarked on the Rio qualification process with Bithell, came on board and so far the pairing have had a fair wind at their backs. Patience and Grube finished fifth in the 470 world championships in Argentina in February, fourth at a major meeting in Palma only last week. With the British No 2 boat some distance off in their wake, qualification for Rio is regarded as a formality. But it is a return to the medal rostrum which Patience really craves.

You don't have to know your jibs from your mainbraces or your port from your starboard to understand the sensitivities of the situation, as Grube finishes off a programme which Willis started. But the whole affair has lent some perspective to Patience and underlined the privileged position in which he finds himself. This easy-going sailor, born in Aberdeen but brought up in Helensburgh, has become a man possessed.

"You know, it is a really hard one to talk about," said Patience. "It was a shock for a start, for such a young guy to be diagnosed with that. No-one saw this coming. You put so much effort and work in together and then something like that brings home some perspective about the whole thing. It is just such a shame because provided he gets better, which I am sure he will, the poor guy will have missed the chance to achieve his dream and that is an Olympic gold medal. That is really sad.

"I do have to re-qualify but there is no number two British boat that is anywhere close," Patience added. "Chris and I are comfortably in the top five in the world so I will be on the start line at the games.

"I am hell bent on it now. After London I was already hell bent enough to make sure it wasn't another silver medal but with everything that has happened and such a short period of time that Chris and I have to get ready for the games, I am a man on a mission right now. I am using every day I have between now and the Olympic games to do everything I possibly can.

"The goal hasn't changed but I do feel more determined than ever. Maybe it is because I've got a new sense of perspective. With Eliot being ill, you think 'Christ, what we do is such a privilege and an honour'. We are so lucky to get the opportunity to chase medals, chase dreams and make the boat go as fast as it possibly can go. Something has happened to me and I am on it. I feel like I am moving at 100mph right now."

Considering the hours which must be spent in close proximity to each other in a small boat, a certain amount of acclimatisation has been required. It helps that Grube is a former rival competitor, while sailing is a sport where every ounce of weight counts. Patience and Bithell's successful London partnership broke up as they were convinced that they would be too heavy to sail together in conditions in Rio which will be light years away from the wind of London.

"I spend more time with Chris than he spends with his fiancee," said Patience. "I think I might actually be the one that he is marrying, we just don't sleep together! It's probably not healthy but it is just the way it is. There is a bit of getting to know each other round the boat. But I have known the guy for quite a few years now and we have raced against each other. I am a believer in respect for your competitors. You know each other's strengths and weaknesses and you can fast track a team with that knowledge."

Patience is a long time out of Helensburgh. He is based in Weymouth these days, soon possibly Portsmouth, but like most sportsmen spends much his year in hotel rooms around the world. As such there are only occasional chances to return home - his parents now live on the island of Tiree - but he does manage to take Scotland with him on the road with him in the form of a bottle of his favourite whisky.

"I grew up in Helensburgh, and it was such a cool wee scene," said Patience. "There were so many kids who went through the Royal Northern and Clyde yacht club, and the Helensburgh sailing club, our parents would take us down after school in the freezing cold. I don't think any of us knew at that time what it could eventually lead to. I get home as often as I can. My parents now live on Tiree and I love going back to the island. It is one of the few places where I switch off and relax."

While it might not agree with BOA guidelines, a dram or two of single malt might just have medicinal purposes this summer. Guanabara Bay, where the sailing events will take place, was recently shown to be rife with pathogens, with competitors almost certainly exposed to dangerous health risks and the viral equivalent of raw sewage. Patience doesn't like it any more than anyone else but he will endure it if he can bring back a gold medal.

"I always take a wee bit of whisky on the road with me, I really take anything but I am a sucker for an 18-year old Talisker," he said. "I'd better not take any before races in Rio although the water is so dirty out there that a wee shot of whisky each day would probably clean out the stomach quite nicely and get rid of a few bugs.

"What can you say? It is disgusting, but it is what it is. There will be a gold medal won in those waters, however clean or dirty they are. I'll sit in bed for three days puking if I have a gold medal round my neck at the end of it. I couldn't care less, man."

In truth, the water quality is just one variable which crews have to take into account, like the tides and prevailing weather conditions in what Patience calls a "weird" part of the world. "We have one shot every four years at one medal, because it is one event per country," he said. "We are not like swimmers where you can enter eight events and have eight shots at a medal. It is the ultimate test of pulling stars together on that one moment on that one day. It is a huge feat of precision to get it right."

The Olympics is the pinnacle of sailing, a sport which Patience describes as being a bit like Formula One with "water and wings" rather than "fuel and pistons". While lottery funding provides excellent support, there is always a search for additional sponsors. Much of his year is spent in boat sheds testing and fine tuning in an attempt to make the boat go faster.

London 2012 was a high watermark for sport in the UK and Patience recalls his numerous brushes with fame and fortune which came his way in the wake of that silver medal. There was a party for all the medallists organised by prime minister David Cameron which was exclusive enough until the cast of Expendables 2 walked in, led by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham. "I was just shooting the breeze with him [Schwarzenegger]," recalled Patience. "It was surreal."

With the home advantage gone, Rio will be a different experience no doubt. But if Patience can touch down on dry land with a gold medal in his possession, it will be quite an achievement and he will have quite a story to tell. Who knows, he might even permit himself a wee dram to toast his own success and the good health of his former partner.