Dror Cohen, Arnon Efrati and Benny Vexler (ISR) are the sonar team to beat at the 2008 Paralympic Sailing Regatta in Qingdao. They have been sailing the longest together as a team and they are the defending Gold medalists from the Athens Paralympic Sailing Regatta. The 14-boat fleet is scheduled to race 11 races. The competition takes place 8-13 September.

 

 

Cohen, Efrati and Vexler are the most experienced Sonar crew here. Cohen and Vexler have been sailing together since 1997 and the three have been racing together as a team since 2001.

 

This is Vexler’s third Paralympics and Cohen and Efrati’s second.

 

The Israeli team won the Gold medal in Athens in 2004.

 

The secret to their success in Athens was Gil Yakimov (ISR), their coach. Yakimov is with them in Qingdao.

 

The three sailors and their coach have one goal – to return to Israel with another Gold medal.

 

 

There are likely to be two fleets of competitors in Qingdao, a group of elite teams and others who have not had the funding, facilities, time, equipment or coaching to keep up with those who are putting in big efforts as the bar keeps being raised on the level of disabled sailing. Some of the teams compete regularly in open class events by adding a fourth crew member and a spinnaker to the boat. The additions make sailing the Sonar more complicated and they also improve timing and crew work.

 

Bruno Jourdren, Herve Lahrant and Nicolas Vimont-Vicary (FRA) have strung together a series of second place finishes in the Sonar since teaming up for the 2007 IFDS World Championships in Rochester, New York.

 

Lahrant and Vimont-Vicary have been sailing together since 2002 with different skippers. “Something is changing,” according to Lahrant since the pair recruited professional sailor Bruno Jourdren.

 

Jourdren, a French national champion in the Melges class and an offshore racer, arrived in Qingdao directly after winning last week’s 19-boat, double-handed 1,000-mile race from Brittany to Spain and back on his 40-foot yacht.

 

John Robertson, Stephen Thomas and Hannah Stodel (GBR) are on a roll as they head into the Paralympic Sonar competition. They won Semaine Olympic Francaise and the Sonar IFDS Qingdao International Regatta earlier this year.

 

Robertson, Thomas and Stodel are also riding on the coat tails of the euphoria remaining from their teammates’ four Gold, one Silver and one Bronze Olympic Sailing medals in August in Qingdao.

 

The team has been sailing together since 2002 and was sixth in the Sonar at the 2004 Athens Paralympics.

 

Jostein Stordahl, Per Eugen Kristiansen and Aleksander Wang-Hansen (NOR) are an experienced Sonar team.

 

To hone their sailing skills, each of the team members sails 2.4 Metres in addition to the Sonar.

 

Stordahl was at the helm of the Sonar during the Sydney Paralympics where his team finished 8^th.

 

Since winning the 2007 IFDS World Championships in Rochester, New York, Rick Doerr, Bill Donohue and Time Angle (USA_ have been training with one of the toughest Sonar fleets in the world on Long Island Sound.

 

DOERR is President of the Sonar Class.

 

Germany and Australia have also fielded strong teams.

 

Sailing has helped many of these competitors overcome great challenges.

 

Many of these passionate sailors regularly compete against able-bodied sailors.