Ramp installation featured on local TV news

Installation of the 30-foot gangway Nov. 16, 2012 at Laishley.

Photojournalists Howie Grace of WINK-TV (CBS) and Steven Campion of WZVN (ABC) and WHDH (NBC) and independent local filmmaker Frank Cushing were on hand to document the installation of the 2012 IFDS Worlds gangway at Laishley Park Municipal Marina Nov. 16, 2012 in Punta Gorda, Florida. Floating docks are now open for training.

US Paralympic Sailing Team member Paul Callahan drove up from his Cape Coral, Fla., home for the ramp installation and was featured on the stations' evening news. His Sail To Prevail team will be training this Nov. 18-22 and providing feedback to the event organizers and race officials in his role as one of the 2012 IFDS Worlds assistant technical delegates, serving under IFDS Director and 2012 IFDS Worlds Technical Delegate Henry Sleutel.

CHR thanks Klint Keesling and his Keesling Construction team of Mike Curtis and Jeff Francoletti for the donation of the crane and crew for the installation.

Special thanks to ramp sponsors, Charlotte County, Michael Simmons and Charlotte Community Foundation. Congratulations 2012 IFDS Worlds Dock Team and co-chairs Roger Strube and Jack MacDonald on a job well done. Many thanks to dock team partners MasTec Engineering and Coral Ridge Condo Association.

The event program is thickening with sponsors, such as the Charlotte Sun, Fishermen's Village Resort & Marina, Weiler Engineering, the City of Punta Gorda, the Charlotte Harbor Visitors Bureau, Charlotte Regional Medical Center, Mosaic, Kitson & Partners, Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda/North Port Association of Realtors, Smuggler's Foundation, Isles Yacht Club, Punta Gorda Boat Club, Charlotte Harbor Yacht Club, Punta Gorda Sailing Club, Charlotte Harbor Community Sailing Center, Punta Gorda Boaters Alliance, Wilkins Frohlich, PA, LD Reeves & Associates, Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce, Waste Management, Punta Gorda Isles Civic Association, Harbor Style magazine, King Fisher Fleets, Coral Reef Sailing Apparel, Shumway Marine, Punta Gorda TV, Centennial Bank, Pusser's Rum, Harken, Mark Bryant Racing, Daystar Communications, Dr. Mark Asperilla, Microtel, Dr. Roger Strube, Gill.

First boat arrives for IFDS Worlds

PUNTA GORDA, NOV. 9, 2011 — To Paralympic Games disabled sailing team hopefuls Ken Kelly and Brenda Hopkin of British Columbia, Charlotte Harbor represents their field of dreams, and a boat named Nick’s Karma represents their golden chance to make those dreams come true.

Kelly, 66, who is paralyzed from the chest down due to a 1976 gunshot wound, and Hopkin, 46, who had a leg amputated after a drunken driver crashed head-on into her car in 1985, are the first competitors in the 2012 IFDS World Championship disabled sailing regatta to arrive for training on Charlotte Harbor. 

The regatta is set for Jan. 7-15, 2012.

Kelly and Hopkin will be dueling against one other Canadian team vying to qualify for their country’s Paralympics team. The winner will compete in the 2012 Paralympics in Weymouth, England.

“The other Canadian team is no slacker,” Hopkin said Wednesday, as she washed her SCUD-18 race boat at a warehouse in Punta Gorda. “But Ken and I have a lot of desire, and we really want to represent Canada in the Paralympics."

It will be a longshot. Both had spent years racing with other teams that disbanded earlier this year. Normally, that would dash the hopes of Paralympic hopefuls. On their level, teams train by racing throughout the four years leading up to each Paralympics.

Kelly and Hopkin leased apartments in the Punta Gorda area in October. Their boat is to be hoisted into the water at the Charlotte Harbor Yacht Club today. They hope to sail daily to catch up with their competition.

“We’re trying to do in three months what normally takes four years,” Hopkin said.

Since he learned to sail in the late 1980s, Kelly has competed in world-class events in Australia, Greece, Denmark, England, Germany, China and the U.S.

“Racing became very addictive and became a huge part of my life satisfaction,” he said. “It takes you away from your wheelchair and puts you on the ocean.”

Both sailors knew each other from sailing in Victoria, British Columbia. They talked about mounting a last-ditch campaign for the Paralympics. However, they didn’t have a boat. That’s where Nick’s Karma comes in.

The boat was so named by its owner, disabled racer Sarah Skeels of New Hampshire, who bought it from the family of Nick Scandone.

Scandone was a disabled American yachtsman who won a gold medal in the boat in the 2008 games in Beijing, China. He died just four months after that victory, at age 43, of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Skeels had to drop out of contention this year after her team split up. So she and her husband Brian offered to rent their boat to Kelly and Hopkin.

“This is a gold medal boat,” Hopkin said. “Things are falling into place.”

Since mid-October, the team has been sailing in Miami while waiting for the Charlotte Harbor Regatta organization to install floating docks. The docks enable disabled sailors to get into their boats. Wednesday, regatta volunteers began installing the docks after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit the same day, according to Brian Gleason, regatta chairman and the Sun’s editorial page editor.

-- GREG MARTIN, SUN NEWSPAPERS