Nova Scotian Scott Lutes will be in Rio, competing in the Paralympic’s three-person keelboat.

“We hit the ground running right after the 2012 games. We started training, we started racing and just building towards this and I think we're coming to our peak at the right time,” says Lutes.

Lutes was paralyzed when a drunk driver hit his families vehicle when he was 11 years old.

He's only been sailing competitively for nine years, but Rio will be his second Paralympic Games.

“It's more than just the sport that's involved, you're involved in a campaign,” says Lutes. “It's four years. It's fundraising, there's a lot of logistics involved, it's a whole other world and having a great team makes a huge difference.”

Paul Tingley is competing in a remarkable 5th straight Paralympics. He won a gold medal at the 2008 games in Beijing as a single sailor.

“When I won the gold medal that was a tremendous feeling, it was not really expected of me and I was over the moon excited,” says Tingley.

Now he's the skipper of Team Sonar, a three-man crew based out of Lunenburg, N.S., that will compete against 14 other countries in 11 separate races at the games in early September.

“You can go from first to last, last to first, it's very exciting, there's going to be a lot patience, frustration, kind of fortunate things happening, so you have to go with the flow and wait it out and be positive,” says Tingley.

While the athletes are looking forward to their Paralympic experience in Rio, there are also some safety concerns, especially for water athletes.

Just days ago, super bacteria was detected in the waters off the coast of Rio, where sailors will be competing.

Team Sonar has already been to Rio, returning in June from a trial regatta, where they saw the pollution first hand.

“There is a lot of sewage in the water, there's no doubt about it, but there's 96 kilometers of coast line along this bay and if there's super bacteria found in one spot it doesn't necessarily mean where we're racing, and we're out at the ocean part of the bay, so it's a lot cleaner,” says Tingley.

“That just means being extra careful, make sure you don't put your hands in your mouth, food that we take on the boat we're really careful about the way we handle it, same with water and on our first visit no one got sick, so our precautions are working,” says Lutes.

There’s also been a lot of talk about the Zika virus, but Tingley says his team isn’t too concerned.

“When we were down there we never really saw any mosquitos and I think it's supposed to be even less when we're there in September, so I'm not really too concerned about the mosquitos,” says Tingley.

The sailors say, for now, their main concern is the competition.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Allan April