Hannah Stodel (GBR), three-time Paralympian and chair of the International Association for Disabled Sailing sailors' advisory council lit the Weymouth and Portland Paralympic cauldron on Friday at the National Sailing Academy, the venue for the London 2012 Paralympic Games sailing regatta.

Hannah Stodel (GBR), three-time Paralympian and chair of the International Association for Disabled Sailing sailors' advisory council lit the Weymouth and Portland Paralympic cauldron on Friday at the National Sailing Academy, the venue for the London 2012 Paralympic Games sailing regatta.

A 14-boat Sonar fleet will line up on 1 September as the 42 sailors in the three-person keelboat begin their Paralympic pursuit.

Seb Coe, Chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee, paid tribute to the UK's unique Paralympic history as he welcomed athletes and spectators to the Paralympic Games.

Australia's Dan Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch and Great Britain's Alex Rickham and Niki Birrell will be the teams to beat in the SKUD18 when the Paralympic Sailing Competition gets underway.

Excitement is building in the Welsh capital Cardiff ahead of the UK leg of the 2012 Extreme Sailing Series, not only amongst the locals who are eagerly anticipating the Extreme 40s Welsh debut, but also within the teams who after their last meeting more than seven weeks ago, are champing at the bit for battle to commence, as they launch into the second half of the 2012 Series.

Gold medallists from the last three Paralympic Games in the 2.4mR, Heiko Kroeger (GER), Damien Seguin (FRA) and Paul Tingley (CAN), will make up part of a highly competitive fleet going for gold at the Paralympic Sailing Competition from 1-6 September 2012.

The Polish team Piotr Ogrodnik, Grzegorz Banaszczyk and Pavel Choroba secured their first Micro World Championship title after dominating the 47 boat fleet on Austria's Lake Traunsee.