QUITE simply, Ben Ainslie is Hampshire's most successful sportsman. The 27-year-old collects world and Olympic titles like we mere mortals collect stamps.

While most boys were playing with Action Man, the twice gold medal winner - at the Sydney and Athens games - was messing about in boats.

It sometimes seems as if he was born with a set of sails attached to his back - and that's not that far from the truth.

sailing, after all, is in Ben's blood.

His father, Roddy, now 64, was a crewman on Second Life which took part in the inaugural Whitbread Round the World Ocean Race in the early 1970s - later to mutate into the Volvo Round the World Race.

Looking tanned and relaxed, Ben arrived back in his adopted home town of Lymington late on Wednesday night after a whirlwind round of interviews with the BBC, ITV and just about every international sailing magazine you could care to mention.

Ben is hot property. Articulate, confident, good looking - and with a reportedly stunning girlfriend to boot - you should hate him.

Yet, as witnessed by the warmth of the greeting he received at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club, on Thursday morning, Ben is a likeable bloke.

FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH BEN AINSLIE GO TO OUR DEDICATED SAILING SITE 'SAIL SOLENT' AT: www.sailsolent.co.uk