The US Sailing/Alphagraphics/Team Paradise High Performance Paralympic training camp at Shake-A-Leg Miami concluded this past Sunday. Four days of Miami sailing in some of the most spectacular conditions is the best way to describe the event. South Florida was blessed with the first cold front of the season. It usually translates to shifty winds since the breeze can’t seem to make up its mind on how to manipulate the high-rise building on Brickell and downtown Miami.
Five boats came to play on Thursday, then Bruce Millar from Canada joined in to make us an even ½ a dozen. The camp started out in light to medium air, but ended in 20+knots of wind.
Team Paradise had two teams in the mix. On-board Team Paradise 1 were US Sailing Team members, Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih, who altered sailing with Danny Evans and Brenda Hopkins. Jeff Ecklund was filling in for Mark and Brian on Thursday. Team Paradise 2 had Patrik Norstrom at the helm, Brian Tabler trimming the jib and me at the main. I learned about Patrik about 18 months ago when he contacted me from Sweden. It took until September of this year for us to meet. He is a good sailor with Paralympic ambitions, but really doesn't know much about racing. It is all going to change. Patrik and Brian are planning on sailing in the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta in next January.
The shifty winds made it difficult to line-up for speed testing. Betsy Allison and Ed Adams were quick to recognize the fact and instead, we did a bunch of short races every day. We typically had two practice starts with a 3-minute sequence and then a windward-leeward, often twice around. The cream always floats to the top and this was no different. Paul Callahan, Ricky Doerr, Alejks Wang Hansen and their teammates did the best. Team Canada with Bruce Millar at the helm is hugely potent, but they are relatively new to the Sonar and face some serious training to get the job done.
Our teams did better than expected. Danny is super talented but also relatively new to racing. Brenda did a good job in front of the boat and they both learned a lot from Brian, Mark and Jeff. Danny will now revert back to his 2.4mR and Brenda will continue her SKUD18 campaign for Canada.
The main challenge on our boat was to properly adapt the steering to compensate for Patrik's lack of arms. We had some “smoking” starts, but loosing the tiller control from time is detrimental for a good finish. I'm stoked to say that we finished ahead of every team at some point or another, during the four days of racing. Also, we would have been much better served had the wind been a bit lighter. We spend a good portion of yesterday to figure out the best possible adaption for Patrik. There are several ideas bouncing around, but nothing on the drawing board yet. Any suggestions? Brian Tabler used a short peg leg to transfer from side to side. He is very talented, but needs additional time in the boat to perfect his skills. Jib-sheet fine-tune adjustment is now on our wish-list, because it will help him in breezy conditions.
A great big “thank you” to the all volunteers that help us out and to Shake-A-Leg Miami for hosting and facilitating all of our needs.
Thank you all for participating.