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The loss of their home pool for more than an entire season hasn’t kept the Dartmouth Crusaders out of the water as the club has gotten creative to ensure their swimmers get the pool time they need.

With renovations expected to continueto the beginning of 2019, the club’s head coach followed up on a suggestion she heard from parents about a lesser known location that might be able to help them in their time of need.

“Some of our swim parents knew about this facility, I’d never heard of it before,” Michelle Wilson explained.

“I just thought ‘I’ll ask and see what they say’ and they were open to it.” Tweet This

That location is the Marine Aviation Survival Training Facility, or MAST, a state-of-the-art multi-million dollar facility that specializes in simulated at sea and underwater training scenarios.

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“We normally provide safety and survival training for offshore, marine, industrial and military aviation segments,” said Dan Latremouille, Training and Operations Manager for Survival Systems Training. “But in this case, we have a pool and they were looking to use it.”

READ MORE: City reveals plans for 16-month Dartmouth Sportsplex make over

MAST had never before been used by a swim club for practice, solely operating as a training ground for rescue and survival.

But when the inquiry came in, Latremouille said it seemed like a great opportunity to help out their neighbours without compromising their business.

“Our normal business lines tend to run in classic business hours, sort of a eight to five sort of thing,” he explained. “Most of the rest of the time our pool is sitting here idle.”

“Turns out there are swim clubs like the Crusaders who are begging for hours in those after hours and evenings and weekends time frames where we have availability so it worked out for everybody.” Tweet This

Dartmouth Crusaders Swim Club have had to get creative to find pool time while the Sportsplex is under renovation. For 3 hours a week some of their swimmers are practicing at the Marine Aviation Survival Training Facility, typically used for underwater rescue type training etc. pic.twitter.com/ifc5jXjrj7 — Jeremy Keefe (@Jeremy_Keefe) May 28, 2018

Although it’s been working out quite well for a small number of swimmers who are diving in at MAST twice a week, the pairing hasn’t been a perfect fit.

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A current pulls swimmers to one side, a lack of painted lines on the floor make staying in their “lanes” tricky and water temperatures that are 10 to 15 degrees cooler than a normal pool, aren’t suitable for everyone signed up with the club.

“Most of them got used to the temperature over time, a few of them could not,” Wilson said. “They would cramp up really badly so they train on their own at other facilities during the public lane swimming or they run or do weights or something other than swim on that day.”

“So that’s compromised their overall pool time a little bit,” she said. Tweet This

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While anxious for the club’s home pool to return Wilson is grateful that they were able make the arrangements they did and continue on with a trying season.

“We couldn’t have done it without having had this facility,” she explained.

“We’re here in the water three hours a week and that’s 30 per cent of this group’s training time.” Tweet This

The club is now in its 47th season and has its half century anniversary in its sights.

They’re hopeful a drop in enrolment due to the temporary loss of their home pool is temporary as well.

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“We have enough pool time to continue but we need new membership to come in in order to get the revenue generation to make sure that we can pay for all that pool time because pool time is not inexpensive,” said Wilson.

Follow @Jeremy_Keefe