The target is four medals, compared to five in each of the last two games in Athens and Sydney, though the Olympic bosses are hoping for five, just one less than the burden placed on the best medal delivery hope, cycling.

"No team is bullet-proof, but we are better prepared than any previous Olympic sailing team," says their manager Stephen Park. "We go in good heart, confident we have done the hard yards and, providing the dice don't roll against us, we should be well-placed." Britain's has talent in abundance, funding, though by no means the most lavish, aplenty, and, if organisation is the essential platform, then the Royal Yachting Association is the model for many, the envy of all.

The chefs are in place, the physios are already on daily duty, a pampering support team of 20 is ready to smooth the way, and nothing has been left to chance except chance itself on what is the treacherous track that is the 2008 Olympic sailing venue of Qingdao.

It has achieved international notoriety with pictures of volunteers draped in huge dollops of green algae and seaweed, thanks to the perfect growing conditions in less than crystal clear water turned into a stinging soup by hot and humid conditions.

In typical Chinese style, the authorities threw a thousand clear up boats and tens of thousands of people plus the army at the clear-up job while installing a barrage barrier 32 kilometres long across the bay.

A more serious threat to a schedule that calls for between 11 and 16 races for the 11 classes comes from a lack of wind on a stretch of water that will be experiencing the strongest tides of the year.

The British team has been sailing there ever since the end of the last Games. It has a team house, 10 container loads of kit, including two for inside the venue which are air-conditioned and fully fitted out for a combination of repairs, an office and resting. The Olympic village will be a five-star international hotel which will open for business immediately after the follow-on Paralympics are over. Britain has medal hopes there, too.

Ainslie has three medals in a row, a silver and two golds, and two thirds of the Yngling team are defending their Athens gold after a split with former skipper Shirley Robertson. These, plus the intimidating Morrison and Rhodes in the 49er high performance dinghy, means the medal potential runs deep.

Sydney gold medallist Iain Percy and new crew Andrew Simpson have an even chance in the Star. Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield took silver in the 470 in Athens and their women counterparts, Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark are improving strongly after Clark's back injury.

Ayton's fiancé Nick Dempsey and Bryony Shaw carry the windsurfer hopes, while Paul Goodison won his fourth consecutive Laser European Championship at Nieuwpoort, Belgium and Penny Clark in the women's division is in the zone, and Leigh McMillan and Will Howden are knocking on the door in the Tornado catamaran.

But Park is not counting any chickens. "There are 33 medals up for grabs and you could see sailors from 15 to 20 countries on the podium to collect them," he says. "It is time to do the business."

You get the feeling, however, that for Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, the favourites to win the Yngling sailing class at the impending Beijing Olympics, the sense of omnipotence may remain even after they have taken thel ift back down to terra firma. Their record in recent years, which includes victory in the last two world championships, the European title and last year's trial event on the unpredictable Olympic course at Qingdao, has demonstrated their class, technique and collective determination. They are, patently, a dominant force. And yet they are happy – not ecstatic, but happy – to entertain the rather simple image which has been appended to them by the media: "Three Blondes in a Boat."

That name, of course, was applied to a different combination at the last Olympics, in Athens, when Ayton and Webb were skippered by Shirley Robertson, who was already an Olympic gold medallist, to a victory in the Yngling class so comprehensive that they were able to take the last day off and watch the rower Matthew Pinsent earn his fourth Olympic title in company with Messrs Cracknell, Coode and Williams. By their own admission, they felt like guilty schoolgirls missing class.

Four years on, Ayton – who back then went by the omnipresent sailing nickname of Nipper – has become skipper and she and Webb have recruited the young talent of Wilson, a double medallist at the world youth championships. Enter Pippa the Nipper.

"Pippa ticked all the boxes," says Ayton.

"She's got blonde hair," adds Wilson.

It's probably a joke.

Ayton was the prime mover in the reshuffle that took place in the wake of the Athens victory and although you could not call the split with Robertson affable – the veteran Olympian formed a new crew in the Yngling and challenged for Beijing selection all the way down to the wire – it has been accommodated without undue unpleasantness.

"We haven't really crossed paths out of competition," Ayton says, "and when you are racing you haven't really got time for a tea and a chat. But there is no bad feeling." A set expression on her face hints that this might just be a party line, but if it is, it is being toed by all.

The Ayton crew secured their Olympic place with a victory in last year's world championships in Cascais, Portugal, but an incident at the end of their last race there almost sank them. Wilson slipped off the boat, to be retrieved by a desperate arm flung out by Webb.

"My role is to lean back off the boat with my feet hooked into a toe strap," Wilson recalls. "I don't know why, but as we were going round the last buoy I missed it and I just felt myself falling backwards. I landed in the water, but Sarah somehow grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me back in."

Webb, grinning, offers her account of the incident. "I had my back to Pippa when it happened. I was looking at Sarah, and she just said 'Pippa's gone', without any obvious emotion."

Her skipper intones: "We should have left her."

It's probably a joke.

"We would have had to go back and pick her up," Webb continues. "We couldn't have completed the course otherwise."

OK – it was definitely a joke.

Ayton takes up the running. "We learned from that experience. If it hadn't happened then, maybe it would have happened at the Games."

Clearly, some serious positive thinking has been going on here, and Ayton and her crew are quick to praise the input of the team's psychologist, Ben Chell. One of the trademarks of Robertson's successful crew was a determination to be smart in all they did and, more importantly, to be seen to be being smart by all their rivals. That philosophy has endured among the new trio.

"It's all about image and perception," Webb says. "We make sure our competitors never see us struggling with our preparations. We always do things methodically and together."

Wilson adds: "Sailing is a very uncontrollable sport by its nature, so what we have to do is to control everything we can, to dot every 'i' and cross every 't'."

In an event strung over days psychological strength is a key element, and the Yngling crew believe they are in an ideally encouraging environment within a team that has been one of Britain's successes at the last two Olympics.

"You just have to look around you," says Webb, gesturing to the other British sailing personnel dotted around the bar. They are here for their farewell event, many floors downstairs, later in the evening. Among the personnel toying with fruit juices and sparkling water are the former 49ers world champions Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes and the double Olympic champion Ben Ainslie. "When you see people around like Ben, a legend," adds Webb, "all it does is give you confidence that you are doing the right thing."

If sailing is an unpredictable sport, the Yngling class – involving heavy keel boats – is a peculiarly testing one. The boats, with their wealth of technical variations, have been likened to Formula One cars. Ayton offers a different analogy. "They're like a very finely tuned Transit van," she says. As such, it is exceedingly tricky to make the fine judgement involved in bringing the boat to the start line not too late, in order to be competitive and not too early, thus to be disqualified.

"It's like when you are on a motorway and you get stuck behind big lorries," Ayton says. "They take their time going uphill, moving through all the gears, and once they are going, they are going. But then once you get to a downhill stretch they are bloody hard to stop. That's basically us. Once you've got on a roll you are committed, so you have to time your run to the start line very carefully. It makes it very hard."

Luckily for her crew, Ayton – who is due to marry the British Olympic windsurfer Nick Dempsey in October – is very skilled. But endless travel and practice is not the only sacrifice these three Olympians have to make. They have also to ensure that their collective weight does not exceed 205kg – if it did, they would not be allowed to race.

"It's generally agreed that the heavier you are, the faster the boat goes," says Ayton. "The idea is to stop big crews from the United States steamrollering lighter opposition from Asia or Europe. The bigger you are, the more power you have to handle the boat."

The name of the game is economy, and judging by the tame drinks in front of these three, precious few diversions from that course are entertained.

"We are weighed before every race," Webb says. "You used to be able to go in completely naked. But then one Australian guy who was doing the weighing had a heart attack when the whole of the Dutch women's team came in without any clothes on. Now you have to wear a bikini as a minimum."

Setting aside for the moment the pressing question of why this Australian should have registered any objection, it seems fitting to ask about prospects for the impending Olympic competition.

"We had a meeting about this recently," Ayton says. "We all feel that if we don't win, we will be absolutely gutted. Anything else but gold would be a letdown."

No one seeing the resolution on the three faces around the table would doubt their resolve. The official website for the Yngling girls, however, contains a mission statement which sets their ambitions even higher. It talks about "world domination".

It's probably a joke.

Ynglings to skiffs: Beijing boats

FINN Single-handed class of dinghy. Has been part of the Olympics since 1952. A men-only event until Beijing.

YNGLING Designed in 1967 as a smaller sailboat, intended to sail with two or three crew. Chosen as the Olympic women's keelboat for 2004 and 2008.

49er SKIFF Seen as the most difficult dinghy to master. The 49er is a double-handed trapeze boat used at Olympics since 2000.

RS:X Windsurfing discipline replacing the Mistral class in Beijing. All sailors use the same boards, fins and sails.

470 Named after the overall length (in centimetres) of the boat, the 470 is a double-handed monohull dinghy which is designed to plane easily.

LASER Dinghy class became a men's Olympic class boat in 1996 and can be sailed by one or two crew. The smaller Radial version has been chosen as the Olympic class for single-handed women in next month's Games.

STAR A one-design racing keelboat for two people, the Star does not use a spinnaker when sailing downwind. Has been an Olympic class since 1932.

TORNADO A catamaran with a two-man crew, making its last appearance at an Olympics. Designed in 1967, the Tornado flies on one of its two hulls, while the crew balance the boat with their weight.