SKANDIA Team GBR is the British Sailing Team in the Olympic and Paralympic classes.

The team consists of the Performance Squad and Development and Transitional squads, which jointly total around 70 sailors.

The sailors train and compete across 10 Olympic Classes: Finn, Laser Radial, Laser, 470 men and women, 49er, Star, RS:X men and women windsurfers and, new for London 2012, Women’s Olympic Classes Match Racing.

There are three Paralympic Classes: the Sonar, 2.4mR and SKUD18.

Great Britain is the world’s top Olympic classes sailing nation with the British Olympic team sailors topping the medal table at the past three Games in 2000, 2004 and 2008.

In this Dorset Echo column, Skandia Team GBR members are bringing an insight into the campaign for glory in 2012.

Here’s Paul Goodison, Weymouth’s Olympic gold medallist Laser sailor and Team Volvo member.

AFTER a busy week at home unloading containers and having fitness tests and planning meetings it was nice to escape the cold.

I have just been in Tenerife training with a good group of guys [including fellow Skandia Team GBR sailor Nick Thompson] at a location near the south airport.

The wind has been great with strong thermally-enhanced breezes most days creating some physically challenging conditions.

It’s been a good week working on a few technique changes with Nick and Australia’s finest and coach for the trip, Arthur.

Tenerife has some pretty cool landscapes.

One day we hired a car and headed up to see the volcano.

After getting the cable car up we walked to the crater. Leaving the cable car at over 3,000m altitude the walk was quite literally breathtaking.

We all felt a little light-headed and dizzy as we wandered passed people on the way up.

The smell was a little unpleasant.

I think it was mainly sulphur but the views were really impressive looking down on the lava fields and the tops of clouds.

At parts, the rock was really hot as steam seeped through cracks.

This was nice as it was -6 up at the top – over 3,700m altitude, the highest point in Spain.

During the trip we played a bit of tennis.

We definitely need to play a bit more as we were pretty poor.

Arthur’s brother may have coached Boris Becker but the skills had not rubbed off too much.

Cycling was also pretty cool although it was predominantly up or down and not much in-between.

We’ve just spent the weekend in London for team building activities.

The highlight was a visit to the velodrome on Friday night to see the track cycling, it was so inspiring and really exciting to watch the cyclists.

It’s going to be a great six months ahead.