ANOTHER day, another Olympic venue.
Today I’m in Weymouth, the seaside settlement a three-hour drive from London on the Dorset coast.
Weymouth doesn’t have any trouble attracting holidaymakers, and this is a favourite spot for domestic travellers looking to spend a few lazy days by the beach in summer when the town’s population of 17,000 will double during the warm months.
But this time next year, when the Olympic and Paralympics sailing competitions are be held in Portland Harbour and Weymouth Bay, that already elevated summer-holiday number is expected to jump even higher with visitors from around the world converging on the town.
A number of England's waterside locations asked to host the sailing, but this yacht-obsessed Dorset community was chosen because it had 1000ha of sheltered water in Portland Harbour and easy access to Weymouth Bay.
The Olympic competition will be based in the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy, a world-class facility on the site once occupied by a Royal Navy air station, and this time next year the apron and docks in front of the building will be clogged by sail boats of all shapes and sizes.
According to Chris Knight, who runs the Academy, the Olympic sailing competition won’t stretch the facility or the community because the site is regularly used for the biggest international regattas.
"The bigger boats will be out in the more testing water near the white cliffs, and the windsurfers will be inside the harbour," Chris says while standing on the Academy balcony.
"The Games isn’t that big when it comes to the number of competitors, but it is big when it comes to the number of officials and media who will accompany the event, and we will take over some of the businesses that surround the Academy during the Olympics to accommodate everyone.
"We are trying to make the competition as spectator friendly as possible, and there will be lots of spots on land where you can stand and watch the activity on the water."
By the way, history buffs will be interested to know that this was where the Mulberries – the giant concrete blocks that were bolted together at the D-Day beaches to make the artificial port needed to bring supplies ashore during the Allies invasion of Europe – were assembled before being towed across the Channel to France.
And you can just see one Mulberry still in the port, it wasn’t needed in 1944 so was left behind in England and now it makes this port a living museum as well as a popular sailing spot.
