All Hands on Deck: SailMobility Brings Sea Legs to All
Sail Martha's Vineyard, SailMobility Program: Vineyard Haven Lagoon, Vineyard Haven, MA
Imagine being limited your whole life, whether physically or mentally, and then being allowed the opportunity to sail a boat in the stunning Martha's Vineyard lagoon. For those like Jack, a young adult who is partially paralyzed, or Jill, who has an intellectual disability, sailing is not something they would ever have had the opportunity to do. However, they do now!
I spent my summer as a sailing instructor, witnessing Jacks of the world learn to tack and jibe a sailboat with one arm, and the Jills of the world beam from ear to ear as they pushed their steering stick from left to right.
“The sea can be daunting, but if you have the right organization, equipment, instructor, people, and support network, it can change people’s lives.”
Sail Martha’s Vineyard is a not-for-profit organization based on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard whose mission is to provide maritime culture, education, appreciation, and skills to all community members regardless of age, background, or ability. Executive Director Andy Nutton wants everybody out on the water, and his leadership of SailMobility, an adaptive sailing program started in 2019, allows those with physical, intellectual, and behavioral differences to get out there and experience the magic of boating—to do something that they have never done before.
Do you have a personal connection to SailMobility? How did you decide to take on this mission?
When I started working as an instructor many years ago, we had kids from a disadvantaged area come to the program. Some of them had moderate learning difficulties. I saw them go from kids who struggled with day-to-day activities to jumping on a boat and doing so with a focus. They quickly took to the skill set, ran with it, and loved it. That was how the sport of sailing can offer opportunities to people who may not have thought of it as an avenue for success.
In 2007, I joined The Royal Hospital School in England as Director of Sailing. Next door to our operation was a disability sailing organization. They were using the boats that we now have at Sail MV. When I saw these young people and adults with mobility issues and intellectual challenges go out on the water and do what we do now, but also witness the community of parents and caregivers that developed around it, I thought that was something I would love to get going at some point.
When I arrived on the Vineyard, it became obvious to me that there was a market for this.
We run maritime studies in the high school, and that showed me that there is a group of young people in the school who have a variety of challenges—intellectual challenges and physical disabilities—and that we needed to reach this group of young people from 8-18.
How do the adaptive boats within SailMobility serve your community?
Sailing is a dynamic sport. If you throw a bunch of 10-year-olds in a boat on a sunny day, they will capsize almost immediately because it’s fun. That’s great, but if you have mobility issues, that can’t happen. You need a boat with a stable platform for skills to be learned. And it has to be very simple.
Sailing requires intuition. The boat goes to the right when you steer the tiller and push to the left. When you push to the right, it goes to the left. This is second nature for those of us who have sailed for years, but this steering mechanism is a learning barrier for some.
The Hansa provides a stable platform because it has a keel and doesn’t turn over. However, it does tip to the side, and you can get your shoulder splashed a little. It’s not like being in one of these bigger adaptive boats where you don't get the visceral feeling of being in the water. With the Hansa, you get splashed in the face, and you are actually sailing a boat except that the tiller is in front of you so that when you turn that tiller left, the boat goes left
The main sheet is also in front of you, meaning there is no rotation or transition from side to side. Everything is as easy as possible, which means the chances of success for people with different abilities are far higher. They get to sail and feel the tipping from side to side. They are getting all these sensations we love about sailing while knowing it’s safe and secure.
You need to take people to the edge of their comfort zone so they learn quickly. That’s why we exist as a species. For these folks with differences, we want to be able to take them toward the edge of their comfort zone but make sure that they never fall off the edge.
If you take a 10-year-old and stick him in a dingy at six knots, they are in their comfort zone. They are fine. But if you stick him at 12 knots and it blows up a bit, then they might have a bad experience, which will dent their confidence to keep going. We can’t have that happen with a group of young people in the SailMobility program, so the Hansa allows us to run things without worrying about a person getting outside their comfort zone.
“...to go out on the water to explore, it’s not just a developing skill set but a wellness exercise.”
How do you see the SailMobility program moving forward?
The next stage for us is to ensure we can offer the program to everyone. Right now, we have some accessibility issues that do not have to do with the boats themselves but getting people to the boats. We hope to ultimately be able to travel to local docks and carry people in wheelchairs or with severe mobility issues into the boats.
Not everybody with mobility issues is young. We want to get anybody from eight to eighty on the water. My grandmother sailed in small boats until she was 85, and the goal is to offer that experience to the whole community. The end game is to have more of these boats and to create a community, sea-based program where anybody with mobility issues or intellectual challenges can get on the water.
Painting by John Evans, Lightfall, 2016. Oil on canvas.
If you sit at home every day and look out the window, your contact with the environment is limited, but if you have an organization that allows you to come down to the lagoon once or twice a month to go out on the water and explore, it’s not just a developing skill set but a wellness exercise. It’s the opportunity to have the same experience that you and I have loved doing all summer and will do for the rest of our lives.
Can you share an inspirational moment?
The independence factor is minor if you play soccer, baseball, or tennis. You are not given a vessel or something to drive around in. A moment brought this to life this summer – when Kevin [a Dad] took his son Connor [with autism] out sailing. They went from being instructed by us, always going out with an instructor, to all of a sudden – off you go! Kevin and Connor were in charge of that boat. That would have never crossed their mind before because Kevin did not know how to sail, and Connor was never going to be able to get in a boat that allowed him to express his intellect through the simplification of complicated skills.
Watching them go sailing was next-level - awesome. It was a display of ultimate independence. We did it. This works. And it brought tears to my eyes.
You go sailing with your grandfather, and I sail with my boys. The experience of a family unit doing something in a boat together is special, even more so to people who never thought it possible. That’s what this is all about—giving that experience to a family.
What are your challenges?
The sea is a scary place. There are monsters out there. As an instructor, you have seen that some kids don’t take to it. The boat is an independent entity that is going to move around. The idea of offering this boating experience not only to an 8-year-old but also to those with disabilities does not sound safe. It sounds like you are taking risks.
We have to get people to understand – to provide the why, which is easy to do, and the how, which is harder. We have to educate the community as a whole about the kinds of boats that we use. We looked around the world at boats, and the Hansa is perfect.
“We are a small boat organization that gets feet in the water and spray in your hair, and these boats allow us to do that.”
Do you have any messages for folks with a disability who want to sail?
The sea can be daunting, but if you have the right organization, equipment, instructor, people, and support network, it can change people's lives. I have never known anybody involved in sailing – from those who started as infants to those who join for the first time at sixty or seventy years old – who do not have a positive experience and come away with a sensation of “I feel different.” They have this little sense of achievement. They controlled this random bit of wind. It’s better than a good day at work, and everybody should have the opportunity to experience that.
