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I was lucky enough to sail in Cowes week this year with Kerry Gruson who is a US Paralympics sailor.  Kerry has competed in Cowes week for the last few years and was the first disabled person to helm in the event competitively.  She was strangled by a Vietnam war vet who had a flashback when she was interviewing for the New York Times in the 1970s.  She is technically a paraplegic and therefore has very limited mobility - she learned to sail in Miami after her accident, and is now an incredible helmswoman. 

I had never sailed with a disabled person before so there were a few things to adjust to during the week.  Kerry, me and 2 others were sailing a small keelboat - a 23ft Sonar.  The sailors among you will know it is important that crew sit on the high side of the boat to keep it balanced and moving as quickly as possible – Kerry has a specially designed chair which moves her from one side to the other of the boat using a pulley system.  Other than that, it was no different to sailing with able bodied crew – as you might imagine she is pretty good on the helm!

All in all, we had a pretty great week – on day one we broke our mast and had to be towed in by the coastguard, however, things looked up for the rest of the week and we managed two 3rd places and came 5th in our class overall! 
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More on the mast...

The mast broke as a pin had come out of the outer shroud on the starboard side - hard upwind on a starboard tack meant that within 5 seconds the mast had snapped into 2 pieces.  Luckily the sails remained intact (although the main sail was a little stretched...)  We quickly pulled the upper half of the mast (and the jib) out of the sea and radioed the harbour master for assistance. 

We were really lucky in that the guys at Corinthian (thanks!)  found us a new mast that fitted the boat and we were able to fit it ready for racing the next day.  You can be sure that we checked and taped the pins in the rigging before we went out every morning after this!
 


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