Disabled Sailing

Disabled sailor

Sailing for people with significant physical disabilities got its start in Canada in 1989, when Sam Sullivan used a British-made Sunbird dinghy to launch the first few sails at the Jericho Sailing Centre on English Bay. Today, the Disabled Sailing Association of BC (DSA-BC) operates eight specially designed Martin 16 sailboats and hosts between 800 and 1,000 sailing experiences annually at Jericho and more from its affiliated branches in Victoria, Chemainus and Kelowna. Inspired by DSA-BC and Sam Sullivan’s efforts to expose more and more people with very high levels of physical disabilities to the sport, adaptive sailing has now spread across Canada, throughout the US and around the world. Disabled sailing now plays a major role in the Summer Paralympics every four years.

Assisted sailing

The Disabled Sailing Association of British Columbia (DSA-BC) Web site has a complete list of links to international, Canadian, and U.S. sites for disabled sailing organizations. The site lists main organizations for international, Canada, U.S., and other countries. Within Canada and the U.S., they list organizations by province and state.

See http://www.disabledsailingbc.org/links.shtml for the complete list of sites.

Canada – national

Canadian Yachting Association: Sailors With Disabilities:
http://www.sailing.ca/racing/events/disabled/index.asp

U.S. – national

Sailability USA: http://www.sailability.org/us/usa

The National Ability Center: http://www.nac1985.org

US Sailing: http://www.ussailing.org/swsn

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