A 61-strong British team has been named for the event which takes place from October 31 until November 7 on Lake Karapiro.

And the line-up was accompanied by an instruction from team selectors for rowers to regard the Southern Hemisphere event - later in the year than  normal for a European-based championship - as the start of the 2012 Olympic qualifying season.

Britain will need to qualify its boats for London 2012 through the World Championships in Bled, Slovenia, just nine months after the 2010 event.

"These next 11 months are a crucial part of the Olympic cycle," said Performance Director David Tanner. 

"We go to New Zealand with strength in depth and will want to assess progress to date."

Grainger, three times an Olympic silver medallist and twice a world champion, commented: "It would have been fascinating to try for both events but we want to focus on the double scull in New Zealand to give ourselves the strongest possible chance of success."

The decision of Grainger - who won a surprise single sculls silver at last year’s World Championships - and Watkins to concentrate their resources has two immediate ramifications.

Should they get among the medals again - and there is every likelihood they will - it will not be a case of skipping the medal ceremony to get into the quad boat in time, as it has been thus far in 2010.

The second ramification concerns the women’s quad line-up, which now has space for Beijing quadruple sculls silver medallists Debbie Flood (pictured), who has been returning to fitness this season after taking a year out to work in the Prison Service, and Frances Houghton, who is returning to contention after a hip operation.

Three other rowers are named for the women’s quad - Annabel Vernon and Beth Rodford, who have won two World Cup golds and a silver with Grainger and Watkins this year, and Katie Solesbury, a member of the women’s eight at the Beijing Olympics, who is returning from injury.

Matt Langridge, Alex Gregory, Ric Egington and Alex Partridge, the world men’s four champions, will defend their title.

All except Gregory, who travelled to Beijing as a reserve, were part of the Olympic silver medal winning British eight. 

The quartet dug deep to win at the World Cup finals in Lucerne but know that the Australians, amongst others, will be tough challengers.

Peter Reed and Andy Triggs Hodge will race the men's pair - the same event in which they took silver in Poland last year. 

Already Olympic champions in the men's four, the duo have chosen a hard path over the last two seasons, pitting themselves against one of the world's stand-out crews in New Zealand's world champion pairing of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray.

After a string of hard knocks, they aim to gain a first world-level win against Bond and Murray, on the Kiwis' home waters.

"I've been really enjoying training in the pair since the project began," Reed said. 

"Of course racing is tough when you're collecting silvers, but we are hard guys and we're constantly improving. 

"We're the fastest boat the GB Rowing Team can field and we've moved on significantly. 

"I can't wait to race again."

Alan Campbell (pictured) leads off a strong men's sculling section.

He races the men's single once more, after taking silver in 2009 behind the reigning world champion, Mahe Drysdale from New Zealand.

Campbell's season got a timely boost at the world cup finals when he took a silver behind Czech Ondrej Synek but ahead of Drysdale.

"It's such a strong sculling squad now,"said Campbell. 

"We are all pushing each other on."

Britain's men's quadruple scull is also a crew with strong potential. Sam Townsend, Bill Lucas and Charles Cousins, all alumni of Reading University, have been joined by Stephen Rowbotham this season and have won bronze medals at the last two World Cups, in Munich and Lucerne, behind Croatia and Germany.

Townsend, Lucas and Cousins are among 11 of this year’s squad to have come through "Start", the British Rowing's talent identification and development scheme, which is sponsored by Siemens and supported by Lottery Funding.

"Since finishing the World Cup season we have had two good training camps," Lucas told insidethegames today.

"We feel we are moving in the right direction, but it is only racing that will give us the answer.

"No British crew has reached the World Championship quad final since 1982, so that is an obvious target for us.

"The Croatians and Germans finished one and two at the last two World Cups, but it looks as if the Germans may have lost a little form as they only finished fourth in the European Championships."

That title went to Poland, but the Poles will not be contesting the worlds, having decided to focus their efforts on peaking at the Europeans and then getting back into tapering for next year.

Germany, however, will be in New Zealand - as will Croatia, who took silver behind Poland in a championship which Britain did not contest this year.

In Lucerne Britain had its best World Cup of all time, winning four golds, four silvers and three bronzes but two rowers were disappointed amongst the general jubilation there.

Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter, the 2008 Olympic lightweight men's double scull champions, got back together this season after more than a year out.  Despite early-season injury to Hunter they bounced back to win gold in Munich - described as a "shock" at the time by Hunter - but they could only muster fifth place in Lucerne and will seek to make amends in New Zealand where the home favourites are the reigning world champions Storm Uru and Peter Taylor.

Meanwhile, Britain has two resurgent open-weight eights this season.

The women have made the podium at all three World Cup regattas and have a determination to do well as a group. 

Coxed by Caroline O'Connor, who juggles science teaching with top-level sport, the crew have gelled well and know that they are more consistent than any other previous GB women's eight.

The men's eight, coxed by Phelan Hill and stroked by "Start" graduate and former swimmer Dan Ritchie, has caught the eye this season and not just because 38 year-old 1992 Olympic gold medallist Greg Searle has been on board after coming out of retirement to pursue the dream of taking part in a home Games.

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