It is always a pleasure to return to England after competing overseas and my trip back home this time has two special reasons. First, there was a visit to Buckingham Palace last Thursday to receive a CBE from the Prince of Wales. Then, this weekend, I will be attempting to win the Round the Island Race.

My Olympic success last year was earned in a one-man Finn dinghy, but the bulk of my sailing now is done on larger, crewed vessels, mainly as skipper of the British Team Origin entry for the America's Cup. I have not been in a Finn since the Beijing Olympics last summer.

I needed to recharge my batteries by doing something different. But there is a good chance that I will enter the Finn World Championships in San Francisco next year. That should be a great event in an awesome venue but most importantly it would give me an opportunity to gauge the level of the competition.

Britain is lucky to have so many talented sailors in the Finn. Ed Wright and Giles Scott have been the stand-out performers in the class this year and there are other Brits close behind. Only one can represent Britain at the Olympics and that drives me on. It is a huge motivation to know that if I am to qualify for 2012 I will have to do it by beating the best sailors around.

Because of the legal wranglings over the future of the next America's Cup, it is possible that Team Origin will not get a chance to compete for the famous silver ewer until late in 2011. This would be a concern when it comes to my preparations for the next Olympics but I think that, with careful planning, it would still be possible.

Obviously it was an extremely proud moment to be invited to Buckingham Palace last week, particularly as my parents and my seven-year-old niece Tansy were there. All my family have given me so much support over the years, as have the British sailing team. My gold medals have been more than just an individual achievement.

I have had a lot of success but there are a few unticked boxes, one of which I will be hoping to correct on Saturday. I have never been first across the line in the annual JPMorgan Asset Management Round the Island Race but this year I will have a good chance on board a lightning-quick Extreme 40 catamaran with Team Origin.

There is a great buzz around the race that I love, especially the feeling on the start line early in the morning when there are 1,700 other boats in the Solent waiting for the off. It is a very challenging race, considering the currents and the weather - not to mention the chance of running aground off The Needles.

It has been a busy few weeks. Team Origin have been competing in the two most recent events of the World Match Racing Series and we won on Lake Constance, in Germany, before coming third in Korea. In the quarter-finals in Germany we raced Ian Williams, a fellow Brit who has twice been world champion in this event. We had a really good tussle with him and, despite losing Iain Percy overboard in a big wipeout in one race, we were able to win the deciding fifth match and go through.

The next challenge is to sail with Neville Crichton on his super maxi, Shockwave, in the Transpac race from Los Angeles to Honolulu, Hawaii, starting on June 29. It should take us six days and we're hoping to break the race record.

It is good to have so many things in hand while we are still twiddling our thumbs over the fate of the America's Cup. Now that the courts have ruled that the 33rd Cup will be a head-to-head between Alinghi and Oracle, the other teams just hope they can organise their contest quickly so the rest of us can join in for the 34th Cup.

The hope is that they will race next February, possibly in Valencia, although Alinghi would like it to be later. We should know for certain by August. The legal battle has been damaging for the competition and many of the teams and Keith Mills, the team principal, has done an incredible job in the circumstances to hold Team Origin together.

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