Woman training to row Channel with Kate Middleton runs upper-class orgy club

Miss Middleton has been training on the oars three times a week, said Miss Sayle, whose organisational skills made her a natural for team leader.

They will race across the Channel on August 25 against a male team to raise money for two charities.

Given Prince William's mischievous sense of humour, he is likely to be as intrigued as anyone about Miss Sayle, the lively daughter of a diplomat.

She was at school with Princess Michael of Kent's daughter, Gabriella, but they took somewhat different paths when Miss Sayle began working for Club Fever, a company organising orgies for "liberated couples and single women".

Naughty but nice: Team leader Emma Sayle

She left to start her own company, Killing Kittens, which has a website advertising £120-a-couple sex parties at a private London residence for "strictly good looking couples and single girls only".

Miss Sayle was rather coy about her orgy expertise.

She said she had sold off part of Killing Kittens last year and no longer had a management role. "I still own some of it, I just don't run it," she explained.

"Now I'm trying to do something very amazing for two charities and organise 21 girls to get across the English Channel and Kate Middleton happens to be one of them.

"She's a full team member. We've got two reserves and 19 in the boat and she's one of the ones in the boat.

Oarsome: The Sisterhood team hard at work on the Thames. They hope to beat an all-male team across the Channel

"She's a general all-rounder and an amazing sportswoman.

She's a great team player. It's quite funny but what I don't want to happen is people to think it's totally scandalous and say, 'Look who Kate's got involved with - a big sex party orgy organiser'.

"She's not stupid, she's aware of it, it's all very above-board, and I've never denied it. Everybody has got stuff they did in the past."

But on the Killing Kittens website, Miss Sayle still has pride of place in a section entitled Our Founder.

She was never personally involved in the orgies, but is described as "one of the world's leading sextrepreneurs".

Miss Middleton was persuaded to join the rowing team - known as the Sisterhood - by Alicia Fox-Pitt, her friend from their days at Marlborough College in Wiltshire.

Miss Fox-Pitt said: "She's been training with us. She is a very gifted sportswoman and we played a lot of sport together at school."

They are aiming to raise £100,000 for charities Babes In Arms, which sponsors research into newborn abnormalities, and the children's hospice charity the CHASE Ben Hollioake fund.