kalessin
Well-Known Member
In May I posted an appeal (http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?359860-Disabled-access-for-Samwise) for help or advice about sailing with my husband Sam (Samwise on this forum) who suffered a massive stroke in May 2012.
We have just returned from a month of very gentle sailing in Baltic Germany and Denmark, and I thought it might be useful to describe our experience in case there is anyone else out there who plans to give it a try.
I would especially like to thank Houleaux (http://www.ybw.com/forums/member.php?38533-Houleaux) who not only lent us his Westerly Storm for a night, but also came up with a practical and successful method for getting Sam over the bow in a Baltic box mooring.
Sam is hemiplegic, i.e. has weakness on the right side. He can use his right leg to stand and walk slowly but his right arm has almost no movement. Our boat is a Westerly Storm 33 which has the advantage of quite low freeboard and wide side decks. The main halyard and spinnaker halyard are both led back to a secondary winch on the starboard side.
We bought a climbing harness for Sam to use when getting on and off, as he found a bosun's chair restrictive. It is a Petzl Adjama - adjustable legs and waist seemed like a good idea as it allows other crew members to use the harness, e.g. for mast climbing (and it was on special offer!). When getting over the bow Sam also wore a lifejacket. We already had a climbing ascender, which was very useful as a handle on the rope above Sam's head. We fitted snap shackles to the stern end of the guardrails so they could be released easily, and removed the dodgers as there was no practical way to rig them.
It took a minimum of two fairly fit and flexible people to get Sam on and off - one to winch, and one to manoeuvre. Getting him off over the bow was most difficult and we benefited from the help of many passers-by who volunteered to help.
To get Sam on to the boat from an alongside quay he donned the harness and we tied the main halyard to it with a bowline. (In fact we bought a short extra length of rope as the halyard isn't quite long enough. The topping lift is a bit tired but otherwise we could have used that instead). Then crew member A on the quay helped him to stand from his wheelchair while crew member B used the secondary/halyard winch to lift him enough to get into the cockpit (quite hard work, as Sam is over 6ft and no lightweight). Person A then hopped aboard and helped him to sit down. That was relatively easy and the process to get him off was identical.
Getting Sam off over the bow was more tricky. We used the main halyard to get him to the mast, then removed the halyard and attached the spinnaker halyard. We tied a loop in the halyard about a metre above his head and attached a secondary line to it. The line was taken off the bow of the boat, ideally to a cleat on the far side of the jetty if one was available, and made off temporarily. Then Sam was winched high enough to get him over the guardrails, left hanging for a moment while person A hopped over the bow, and then hauled away from the boat with the secondary line, while person B lowered him gently and person A positioned him over the wheelchair. This was the tough bit, as the angles were often all wrong and person A really needed to be in two places at once, so person B often had to cleat off the spinnaker halyard and dash forward to help. On every single occasion we did this, even in an apparently deserted marina, someone appeared and offered to help. Of course on a busy quay we were a cabaret act with an audience of hundreds
Getting Sam on to the boat over the bow was usually easier than getting off, as the mechanics of the arrangement naturally swung him towards the mast.
In the UK or much of Europe it would probably have been possible to find a reasonable finger pontoon or hammerhead to make life easier. In the Baltic where we were, almost all moorings are boxes using stern posts, and on the few occasions when we could have found an alongside mooring in a marina it was at the inner end of the jetty, and we would have sacrificed privacy and peace and/or cool air, which was very necessary in the hot weather.
We considered getting Sam off over the stern but the angles were slightly worse, and on our boat there's a lot of stuff in the way. On a modern yacht with open stern he could probably have walked down a passarelle with some support.
Sam got around the boat very well. He needed help getting up and down the (steep) companionway steps, but in the saloon and in the cockpit he could always find something to hold on to to get himself up, or move himself around. We were fortunate that where we sailed was very sheltered and we had good weather, so he never had to cope with serious waves or heeling to more than 15 degrees or so. We plan to get the boat back to the UK so will face different challenges here!
I hope all this may be useful to someone. If you'd like more information, please don't hesitate to PM me.
We have just returned from a month of very gentle sailing in Baltic Germany and Denmark, and I thought it might be useful to describe our experience in case there is anyone else out there who plans to give it a try.
I would especially like to thank Houleaux (http://www.ybw.com/forums/member.php?38533-Houleaux) who not only lent us his Westerly Storm for a night, but also came up with a practical and successful method for getting Sam over the bow in a Baltic box mooring.
Sam is hemiplegic, i.e. has weakness on the right side. He can use his right leg to stand and walk slowly but his right arm has almost no movement. Our boat is a Westerly Storm 33 which has the advantage of quite low freeboard and wide side decks. The main halyard and spinnaker halyard are both led back to a secondary winch on the starboard side.
We bought a climbing harness for Sam to use when getting on and off, as he found a bosun's chair restrictive. It is a Petzl Adjama - adjustable legs and waist seemed like a good idea as it allows other crew members to use the harness, e.g. for mast climbing (and it was on special offer!). When getting over the bow Sam also wore a lifejacket. We already had a climbing ascender, which was very useful as a handle on the rope above Sam's head. We fitted snap shackles to the stern end of the guardrails so they could be released easily, and removed the dodgers as there was no practical way to rig them.
It took a minimum of two fairly fit and flexible people to get Sam on and off - one to winch, and one to manoeuvre. Getting him off over the bow was most difficult and we benefited from the help of many passers-by who volunteered to help.
To get Sam on to the boat from an alongside quay he donned the harness and we tied the main halyard to it with a bowline. (In fact we bought a short extra length of rope as the halyard isn't quite long enough. The topping lift is a bit tired but otherwise we could have used that instead). Then crew member A on the quay helped him to stand from his wheelchair while crew member B used the secondary/halyard winch to lift him enough to get into the cockpit (quite hard work, as Sam is over 6ft and no lightweight). Person A then hopped aboard and helped him to sit down. That was relatively easy and the process to get him off was identical.
Getting Sam off over the bow was more tricky. We used the main halyard to get him to the mast, then removed the halyard and attached the spinnaker halyard. We tied a loop in the halyard about a metre above his head and attached a secondary line to it. The line was taken off the bow of the boat, ideally to a cleat on the far side of the jetty if one was available, and made off temporarily. Then Sam was winched high enough to get him over the guardrails, left hanging for a moment while person A hopped over the bow, and then hauled away from the boat with the secondary line, while person B lowered him gently and person A positioned him over the wheelchair. This was the tough bit, as the angles were often all wrong and person A really needed to be in two places at once, so person B often had to cleat off the spinnaker halyard and dash forward to help. On every single occasion we did this, even in an apparently deserted marina, someone appeared and offered to help. Of course on a busy quay we were a cabaret act with an audience of hundreds
Getting Sam on to the boat over the bow was usually easier than getting off, as the mechanics of the arrangement naturally swung him towards the mast.In the UK or much of Europe it would probably have been possible to find a reasonable finger pontoon or hammerhead to make life easier. In the Baltic where we were, almost all moorings are boxes using stern posts, and on the few occasions when we could have found an alongside mooring in a marina it was at the inner end of the jetty, and we would have sacrificed privacy and peace and/or cool air, which was very necessary in the hot weather.
We considered getting Sam off over the stern but the angles were slightly worse, and on our boat there's a lot of stuff in the way. On a modern yacht with open stern he could probably have walked down a passarelle with some support.
Sam got around the boat very well. He needed help getting up and down the (steep) companionway steps, but in the saloon and in the cockpit he could always find something to hold on to to get himself up, or move himself around. We were fortunate that where we sailed was very sheltered and we had good weather, so he never had to cope with serious waves or heeling to more than 15 degrees or so. We plan to get the boat back to the UK so will face different challenges here!
I hope all this may be useful to someone. If you'd like more information, please don't hesitate to PM me.
