Hello
fellow sailing enthusiasts...
As some
of you know on Dec. 9th I attended US Sailing's
Adaptive Sailing
Summit in San Diego, CA. USA . It was fabulous to mingle with so many
who share my passion to help make sailing more inclusive. The goal of
this summit was to determine what would help to grow the sport of
Adaptive Sailing and make it more inclusive.
The
results of the open discussion during this conference were quite
revealing... We determined 5 things are needed to help with our goal
of making sailing more inclusive.
1. We
need to have an easy way to find resources that are currently
available, such as adaptive equipment currently in production,
sailboats that are being used in various inclusive programs, etc.; 2.
The US Sailing website needs to be made easy to navigate to find
Adaptive/Inclusive Sailing info; 3. Develop best practices and
standards for Adaptive Sailing via education; 4. Improve
understanding and support in our local communities and yacht clubs
for persons with disAbilities in sailing; 5. A network needs to be
built and maintained to keep us all connected in our efforts to build
participation in all aspects of the sport. It does no good to have
this great summit and then go home and not stay connected.
Another
discussion I found interesting was the question... “is there a
better term to express what we are trying to accomplish in the sport
of sailing?” Some call it “accessible” sailing; others call it
“adaptive” sailing; and still others call it “inclusive” or
“universal” sailing (basically inclusive and universal mean the
same thing). Adaptive is a good word but it implies that something
has to be adapted to make a particular boat accessible to persons
with disAbilities, however many persons with disAbilities can sail a
boat with no adaptions at all. The word accessible implies that
something is able to be reached or entered, such as entering or
getting aboard a sailboat, or accessing the outdoors via an
accessible trail, etc. This word/term certainly fits the goal of
making a boat accessible in and of its self, but what we want to do
is go beyond the boat and include the programming, education, web
resources, etc. The word “inclusion” and/or “universal” seems
to be the words to cover it all as these words imply including or
covering all the services, people, facilities, equipment, or items
normally expected or required. I have to add that Inclusive in this
modern era does imply an inclusion of persons with varied identities
and political sensitivities. So likely a more neutral term is
universal. And I might add some yacht clubs will love the word
inclusive and others might be cautious of utilizing an idea or
program that includes this word. So Universal seems to make more
sense.
This
summit takes place each year and I can tell you I look forward to
attending it next year and discussing all that we accomplished in
2017.
So what
is Access To Outdoors going to do for 2017? First, as usual we have
several access projects developing. We hope to have a fully
accessible site on Lake Coeur d'Alene and the Spokane River, and
continue to work current sites to improve their accessibility. In
addition we will be running an inclusive sailing event in Redding
California. One part of this event will be the Hobie 16 Trapseat
Worlds and the second part will be an Inclusive Sailing Workshop to
help persons become Adaptive US Sailing certified. So exciting! 2017
is going to be AWESOME!
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