What a great Training Camp! Team Paradise St. Pete SKUD team traveled from St. Petersburg, FL to Victoria, BC to participate in a week long training camp with the Canadian Disabled Sailing Team. This was a great opportunity to pair up with training partners and capitalize on either others talents on the water and off. John McRoberts (Bronze medal, SKUD Beijing 2008) and his teammate Brenda Hopkin helped to organize the details of the camp. Royal Victoria Yacht Club and a team of volunteers opened their facilities, equipment and homes to us with fantastic accommodations.
Sailing on Cadboro Bay, we had four intense days of on the water training. Each day we had a morning and afternoon sessions with briefings from the head coach, Steve. We identified our strengths and weaknesses or each team and learned from each other. The camps consisted of equipment testing, sailing drills and short course racing. We all departed the camp with lessons learned, skills that need development and technical issues to address. We will plan to train with them again in the fall.
Thanks to Team Paradise, we are able to use the equipment, develop our sailing skills and compete on the road to the Paralympic Games in 2012.