SCOTS sailor Luke Patience will take comfort from two of the quirkiest superstitions in sport in a bid to prove he can be a gladiator of the high seas.

Patience and team-mate Stuart Bithell are aiming to follow the lead of Olympic legend Ben Ainslie when they take to the waters at Weymouth next week in the 470 class.

They will take part in 11 races over seven days – and the crew with the highest points tally will be crowned Olympics champs, as Patience bids to become the first Scots sailor since Shirley Robertson at Sydney and Athens to triumph at the Games.

Patience, 25, from Rhu, revealed he will sneak off the night before his first race on Thursday and gulp down a drink of the seawater from the Dorset coastal resort.

He will then head for bed in the company of a beanie of a green man his mum gave him when he was a kid as a good luck token.

Game-for-a-laugh Patience said: “It sounds so Hippy-ish to drink the seawater from every stretch I race but I’m nothing of the sort.

“It sounds cheesy when I tell people I taste the water and I still don’t remember when it started or why.

“As a sportsman you spend so much time in your own head, controlling your mindset to act appropriately, whether that’s building yourself up or calming yourself down. I guess I’m just a water baby at heart and I’ve always been mesmerised by the ocean. I’m going into battle out there so guess I need to feel and touch and taste the environment in which I’ll be operating.

“It’s like that scene from Gladiator when he picks up the dust before battle and rubs it into his skin before discarding it. I like to feel connected to my battleground but I’ve got to say salty water doesn’t taste so good!

“I also carry around the beanie of a wee green man, the size of a frog. He doesn’t come on the boat but sits on the cabinet at my bedside every night, sending me his vibes. Occasionally, life isn’t fair and neither is sport.

“The details aren’t important but I was wronged on one occasion around 12 years ago.

“I was on a real downer but my mum helped drag me out a hole and gave me the beanie to remind me of that time.”

Team-mate Bithell, from Rochdale, chipped in: “Luke was brought up in the countryside and also on Tiree so he’s way out there.”

Patience and Bithell have twice been silver medalists at the World Championships and hope to go one better.