POOLE sisters Lucy and Kate Macgregor will chart new territory this week when they plot their separate roads to Rio in two new Olympic classes.

Lucy, 26, and 22-year-old Kate, together with fellow Poole sailor Annie Lush, finished seventh in the Elliot 6m women’s match racing event at the London 2012 Games, having also been crowned women’s match racing world champions and world silver medalists in 2011.

But with the women’s match racing event removed from the Games programme for Rio 2016, the Macgregor sisters were left facing new challenges if they were to realise their gold medal-winning ambitions in Brazil.

They will race their new Olympic class boats for the first time this week at the Princess Sofia World Cup regatta in Palma, Majorca.

Lucy has chosen to compete in the mixed crew Nacra 17 multihull with Tom Phipps and Kate will take up the challenge of the 49er FX, a two-person women’s skiff which she will sail with Mary Rook.

Both the Nacra 17 and the 49er FX are newly-introduced for Rio and represent a marked change from the girls’ previous Elliot 6m vessel and the style of racing, with speed and agility key requirements.

“It is very different to what I am used to,” said Kate. “I had never sailed a skiff until December 2012 so it has been a bit of a change to a little keelboat.

“You will probably relate the FX to more of a sports car and the Elliot is more of a fast estate car. There is not a lot to the FX and you get a lot wetter.”

Lucy, talking about the Nacra catamaran, said: “Speed is definitely the biggest difference. I am going a lot quicker than I did before in the Elliot.

“It is a very different style of racing and a completely new world really so this racing in Palma is going to be a real test and it will be good to just get a feel for what it is all about to be able to go on from there.

“In some ways, I am not really sure why I ended up in the cat. It just seemed like the right thing to do. The boat suits me – particularly the speed aspect and the quick thinking, which is actually similar to the match racing in that you have to think on your feet a bit. I am really pleased with the decision I have made.”

The British sailing team is experimenting with a rotation system for its eight FX squad sailors, meaning that Kate will race with a different crew for the first few events of the season before the team decides on its best-fit pairings.

“I think getting as much experience from each other as possible is important,” said Kate of this change in approach. “We have all come from different backgrounds so learning from each other – even the helms – will be valuable to the squad eventually.”

Lucy, meanwhile, is drawing strength from the experience of her crew, 24-year-old Tom Phipps from Falmouth, who campaigned in the Tornado multihull before it was dropped from the Olympic programme after Beijing and who has two Youth World Championship golds and a silver to his name from his time in the youth catamaran classes.

“It is great having Tom being so experienced in cats,” said Lucy. “He has got a really good record performing in catamarans and that has been a huge help in terms of the learning. I think particularly when we go racing that will be great because he can cover my back a little when I start making all the mistakes!

“We are going to learn a huge amount this week.”

The Princess Sofia Trophy – the first European leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series – will run until April 6. Follow the British sailing team’s progress at www.britishsailingteam.com or on Twitter @BritishSailing.