CARSINGTON SAILABILITY
(A short history) - March 2007
Derbyshire Sailing Endeavour was formed in 1993 by Derek Lee as, he says, a selfish reaction to being informed that he was suffering from Peripheral Neuropathy and would be using a wheelchair in four years. Finding out about sailing for people with disabilities was initially done by taking part in the World Disabled Sailing Championship trials which were held at Rutland Sailing Club in 1993, meeting a number of sailors with a wide variety of disabilities from visual Impairment to Paraplegia.
Derek soon realised that a great deal could be done to get more disabled people on the water by providing boats which were specially designed or with simple adaptations, to make them suitable for this purpose. Also there was a need for shore facilities such as stable pontoons with lifts. Two categories of participant would have to be catered for; these are experienced sailors who had become disabled or disabled people who had never sailed before. This meant raising funds for the purchase of boats and equipment and the name Derbyshire Sailing Endeavour reflected the ethos of the project while at the same time endowing a local identity to which local businesses could be associated rather than donating funds to some to anonymous national projects. The other main reason for becoming financially independent was to ensure that any extra money needed to cater for this project was to make sure that it did not come from Carsington Sailing Club’s general finances and it has always been part of our policy that this would be the case. In fact our involvement with the club has been beneficial in that equipment purchased by Derbyshire Sailing Endeavour and Carsington Sailing Club has been for the general benefit of club members and also makes sure that the club complies with all the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act
Based at Carsington Sailing Club the logical step was to form Carsington Sailability in 2000 to become associated with the National Charity for sailing for people with disabilities - RYA Sailability. RYA Sailability was formed when the original Sailability was merged with RYA’s Seamanship Foundation some years ago. A number of DSE and Carsington Sailability were originally members of Sailability and their experience and expertise was invaluable in setting up CS. Both organisations run in parallel with CS being the ‘operational’ arm while DSE now seems to be mostly involved with fund raising or special projects.
The aims and objectives of CS and DSE have over the years extended their activities to encompass many different types of ‘disability’ or rather lack of ability. This has now been recognised nationally, including people with learning difficulties, stroke and cancer victims, rehabilitation after trauma through sporting activities and many others. One example of giving a totally new and rewarding experience to parents of autistic children is that illustrated in Cynthia and Alex. Sailing in one of our Access 303 side by side two seat keelboats which do not capsize.