I’m long-sighted and have a slight squint, so I juggle two pairs of glasses – but those are not disabilities.
I was taught to sail dinghies as a teenager, and then got in to yachting as I grew older. My first encounter with the Jubilee Sailing Trust was in 1998. I was in the Canaries, standing on a quayside, when Lord Nelson came into the harbour. She launched a rib and put four ordinary people ashore to take the lines, then did a 180° turn and laid alongside. I could see that there was a young man in a wheelchair at the wheel and the captain was standing behind him dressed in white shirt and shorts, and with a big grin on his face. The ship beamed out such a warm feeling that I vowed there and then that I’d sail with them one day!
Many years later, in 2011, a lady I’d known since we were teenagers e-mailed me to say that she’d signed up to do something that she thought I’d enjoy too – sail across the Atlantic on Tenacious! She’d given me plenty of notice, so I booked a short 5 day trip from Southampton to Jersey to check that I liked it.
I naively thought when I joined the ship that I’d be helping and supporting the disabled people who were on board, whilst getting great pleasure from something I enjoyed. I quickly learned how wrong that “one-way” view was! I was greeted by my watchleader when I joined for that first trip, and she immediately told me she had hearing difficulties, so I must always face her when I spoke to her so that she could read my lips. She had a slight speech impediment, so her hearing problems were clear to me. And yet, throughout the voyage, she never mis-understood anything I said to her, even in the dark!
I remember going ashore for a meal near the end of that trip. Sitting in a restaurant the fellow crew member opposite me leaned across the table and quietly said he needed to go to the loo. I’d already been, so I just said something like “It’s out the door behind you, turn right and it’s down the corridor”. He replied “No, no, I meant I need your help because of my wheelchair”. I felt really stupid and apologised profusely for forgetting that he was in a wheelchair. His response was to say that telling him I’d forgotten he was in a wheelchair was the nicest thing anyone could say to him!
On many other trips since then I’ve learnt lots of other useful things. If I’m trying to make my way around our house in the dark because my wife is already asleep and I don’t want to disturb her by turning on the lights, I’m a lot better at it if I shut my eyes! My head and body know our house and don’t need to see it all the time!
I was taught to tie knots and splice ropes as a teenage boy-scout and have been fascinated by knots and splicing ever since. When I was in my twenties a girl-friend bought me The Ashley Book of Knots. But it was only when I sailed with JST that I tried tying knots with my eyes shut – and discovered that I can! And then I discovered that I could teach some blind people to tie knots too!
Sailing as a Watchleader I came to realise that a blind person on the helm was often more reliable than a sighted person. Sighted people are often easily distracted whilst helming, by seeing a friend walking past or catching sight of something on the land that we’re sailing past. Blind people at the helm tend to stay much more focussed.
I thought before my first trip across the Atlantic it would be very exciting. I was surprised to discover how relaxing it was! You quickly drop into a routine. You know what’s happening tomorrow, and next week. You’re not getting any e-mails, phone calls or post. You know all the people around you and don’t meet anyone new. It’s very relaxing!
In the middle of the ocean I started thinking of the ship as a little model of the world. So much of what we hear and read these days about inventions, discoveries, policy changes, and all sorts of other events, is about the effect those things will have on our jobs and particularly our incomes. The assumption is that we all need “money” to buy us “things”. Standing on the deck of Tenacious in the middle of the Atlantic I found myself thinking that what we, the human species, really “need” is air to breath, water to drink, a planet to stand on, food to eat, a shelter to live in. You can go on adding things like a health service, a transport system, a security system, a communications network, and so on.
We don’t need money on the ship to “buy” the things we “need”. We don’t compete with each other to earn more money so that we can buy more “things”. Instead we work together as a team, sharing the work out and supporting each other. Isn’t that a great model of how we should be running our local communities, counties, countries and the world? I’ve realised that the things I really enjoy doing these days – bell ringing, maintaining and restoring steam engines, sailing tall ships – are all things that I can’t do by myself. I can only do them by working alongside others as part of a team. Getting to know a wide variety of other people with a big range of different abilities, ages, backgrounds and experiences is a huge pleasure.