Blind Sailing Australia

From Kylie Forth

Dear blind sailors

I am sending this to you because your email address was included in a group email sent by Paul Borg late last year regarding blind sailing in Australia. Apologies if you are not an Australian, but even if you are not, please consider entering a team into the Homerus championships.

For those of you who do not recognise my name, I have been the Skipper of the Australian entry into the Homerus International Match-Racing Championships for the last two years.

You may already know, but the 2010 Homerus Match-Racing Championships has been granted World Championship status by IFDS, and is as such an IFDS event. It will be held on Lake Garda in Italy from 20-27 June 2010. Homerus are calling for expressions of interest from nations as places are apparently filling fast.

The fleets will be divided into a B1 fleet with places for 10 teams, and a B2-3 fleet (B2 Skipper) with places for another ten teams. The Notice of Race has not yet been released.

Since I became involved in blind sailing, I have been interested in establishing a blind sailing program in Australia. I know that there has been discussion about establishing an Australian Blind Sailing committee to this end, and wondered how things were progressing on that front as I have not heard anything further? I would be interested to be involved with such an initiative.

However, of utmost importance at the moment is to ensure that Australia has two teams in next year's championships. Apologies if discussion on this point is already under way as I have not subscribed to the Yahoo group which was set up for blind sailing.

I am willing to act as a rallying point for sailors interested in participating in the championships, and am happy to give anyone more information if they need.

Please circulate this information to anyone who may be interested, and to any other sailors with vision impairments that you encounter.

Kind regards

Kylie Forth

forthk01 @ student.uwa.edu.au

Blind & Vision Impaired Sailing in Australia

Australian blind & vision impaired sailors have demonstrated their capacity to excel in international sailing competition, however there is no organised domestic program to foster new talent. It is hoped that this website will provide a vehicle for discussion about participation, skill development and competitive sailing opportunities for those who are blind or vision impaired.

What Blind & Vision Impaired Sailing is happening in Australia now?

What else is happening?

I am sure that people would like to know what’s happening around the country. If you know of participation, development or racing activities that provide opportunities for blind and vision impaired sailors, let us know so we can include details on the website.

Italy seems to be leading the way with Autonomous Blind Sailing thanks to the Homerus project of Alessandro Gaoso. This involves training for racing along with offshore sailing and navigation. Thanks to this project, the Italians have always provided tough match racing competition.

Blind Sailing International is active in New Zealand and the USA , with an IFDS World Championship being conducted this September by the New York Yacht Club. The IFDS will only bestow World Championship status on one blind sailing event every one or two years.

Canada has an active blind sailing keelboat racing program and the Royal Yachting Association (UK) has for many years run “Blind Week” where 30-50 keelboats cruise the English coastline with blind sailors aboard for up to a week.

There is no separate Paralympic blind sailing discipline, however the blind or vision impaired can be classified under the IFDS Functional Classification System (FCS) and therefore be eligible to compete as part of a mixed disability crew in the three person Sonar or the SKUD 18, the new two person class for Beijing developed by Chris Mitchell of Access Dinghies in collaboration with Julian Bethwaite.