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NACC
/ IC Photos by Greg Scott
Most
of you know me as The Dawg, and that The Ed and I started SA together
what now seems like long ago. I did a ton of racing with and against Ed
while we were all in Oxnard, California. I was a sailmaker with Gary Swenson
for 11 years, and then switched careers and had an industrial accident
that left me a paraplegic. It has slowed me down, but has not stopped
me from sailing as much as possible. Here is a report on my most recent
adventure. As The Ed would say, Good times. - Dawg. Most of the sailors in the Single-handed division, sailed in 2.4mR boats, have injuries that have left them with only upper body mobility or have degenerative diseases that have not ravaged them to the point they cannot use their arms and hands. Sailing the 2.4mR requires upper body functionality but not the lower, although you can set them up to steer with you feet. Not a lot of muscle is required as the boat is small, and that levels playing field. Men, women, youth and disabled sailors can all compete in this boat equally in terms of strength. I would love to see US Sailing use the 2.4mR as the boat in the “Championship of Champions” and invite some of the top disabled sailors to compete along side the able bodied. Because there are only 6 boats, there must be 2 heats per day to accommodate 12 sailors. 2 days of 2 heats 3 races/heat and the top 6 are moved to the Gold fleet and the rest to the Silver fleet. The problem with this is that there can be sailors meeting in the gold fleet that never sailed against each other. This happened with Nick Scandone and Mark Bryant. Talk among the sailors to fix this problem ranged from having more boats (that needs more $$$) or eliminating the Friday seminar and having 3 days of qualifying to reach the Gold fleet. It was mentioned that other US Sailing Championships do not have regatta seminars. One sailor said “When you reach the championship level you should have as many days of racing as possible.” One suggestion was to race during the week, Monday to Friday and avoid the weekend. That might be tough on the volunteers and organizers. And we know none of this would be possible without the volunteers and sponsors. God bless the volunteers, thanks for putting on the event for so many disabled sailors. More thought will be put to this I am sure.
Talk of US Sailing moving the Independence Cup to the Championship Committee was of interest to all. Chicago Yacht Club has run the event for the last 10 years. By moving the event to the US Sailing Championships Committee, for the first time disabled sailors will be treated equally with the USS Champions in other events. Personally I think US Sailing should put all the local areas on notice that they will be expected to host the event at some point. I have no doubt that when they included Women’s and Youth Championships, it was expected that different areas would host those events. One of the issues stated was that most yacht clubs are unaware of what is needed to host a disabled sailing event or they just don’t want wheelchairs and walkers around their docks for liability reasons. Not much is needed to host an event in terms of infrastructure. In Chicago the docks are not ADA spec and we get around fine. In the early days of disabled sailing in St. Pete, FL. the dock was not ADA spec, but they have replaced it with one that is ADA spec which makes it nicer. Where I have my boat (Channel Islands Harbor). the dock is just a dock and I get by. If I need help I ask. If anyone from the SCYA board or a Yacht Club in California is interested in hosting this event and would like to talk, please send me an email. I think Southern California would do a wonderful job and media would love it too. I hope someone steps up as says “We can do it”. There are lots of disabled sailors who have said the same thing while sitting in their wheelchairs and looking out at boats sailing, “We can do it”. On to the races Organizers said they have never had such a competitive fleet. The top 6 sailors rounding out the gold fleet after 2 days of sailing are
North
American Challenge Cup and Independence Cup Sponsors
Day
One: Day
Two:
Day
Three, The Finals:
On reflection, I really want to thank all the competitors for sailing one of the cleanest regattas I have been in with such tight competition. There were many tight starts, roundings and crossings but no protests. There was a few incidents of rather heated yelling but no protests. We had a few redress incidents due to gear failure, remember the boats are provided and supposed to be identical. Finally I do need to mention the girls who were part of the fleet. The 2.4mR can be a demanding boat. There is so much to do but it does not require to much strength. Kudos to the girls for taking on such a daunting task of going out in a complex racer and taking on a bunch really good racers. Final results are below. For
more photos visit www.ussailing.org/championships/photogallery/PhotoAlbum
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