Bristol Sailability setting standards

by RYA on 18 Jun 2015 Earlier this year Bristol Sailability became the latest Centre of Excellence, so what does this mean for the people who sail there and other groups in the South West? Gill Hannan, Administrator tells all…

1. How did Bristol Sailability start?

We didn’t start out as Sailability, it came more through responding to a demand about 10 years ago. As the West of England School Sailing Association (WESSA) we only did a little bit of disability sailing using the Pioneer and Drascombe we had.

Then about eight years ago that changed and the interest in disability sailing really started to kick off, when we borrowed some Access dinghies. We started a Saturday group and the disability sailing just became part of our workflow. In 2004, Bristol Sailability was born.

2. What was your approach?

From the very start, we didn’t want disability sailing to be separate, but at the very heart of everything we were doing to become completely integrated. We re-looked at what we were doing and if it didn’t fit this it was altered.
Everyone who came into the Centre to work, from non-sailing receptionists who never went on the water to freelance instructors, had to complete Disability Awareness Training so that disability was not an issue for anyone. We believe very strongly that society disables people and we wanted that left at the door.

3. How did this grow to Bristol Sailability becoming a Centre of Excellence?

Without realising it, we had been doing all the things it took to be a CoE organically because they were the things we thought were important. This included introducing a training notebook to give volunteers a pathway with us. When the RYA brought in their Logbook we started using that as the group merged into All Aboard Watersports.

Leon, our regional RYA Disability Development Officer, said we were doing virtually everything needed to be a CoE anyway, why didn’t we apply? We felt that being a CoE would give us a badge to say ‘these are our beliefs’, ‘this is how we work’, and ‘this is what we want to achieve’. It was like rubber-stamping the work we had done.

4. How much activity are you running now?

We could have 1,300 people coming through in one year. In peak season last year we were doing 100 a week but I think we will exceed that this year as we already have 30 people coming through on a Friday. In addition to the groups we work with we run two bespoke Sailability sessions a week on a Tuesday evening for young people and our Saturday morning session for all.

But realistically there can be Sailability activity going on every day in the summer as the Centre is open every day and there are open sessions. As long as we know someone is coming along we can put in place the support for them to sail.

5. What groups do you work with?

We work with around 10-12 special schools and young people with extreme mental health trauma, brain injury groups and the Frenchay Hospital Brain Injury Unit, stroke rehab groups, Cerebral Palsy Plus, Bristol Autistic Project and Silver Care (adults with learning disabilities). Childrens Hospice SW are amongst the other groups using the Centre.

We also have started a project, piloted in partnership with Bristol City Council, working with dementia patients. We have a Wheelyboat and they come down every second Friday and we take them out around the harbour, with a commentary pointing out things from the past, like from during the war, they can recall.

6. Do you do any racing?

We have a Racing Squad that trains on a Saturday morning and at the moment there are three young people with disabilities being coached alongside the fleet racing squad. Two are sailing Hansa dinghies and will take part in the Hansa TT in Bristol in August and the other is an Optimist. We do have two 2.4mR to provide a pathway to racing, but no one is quite at that level currently. Last year we had a sailor with severe autism, who couldn’t even look you in the eye when talking to you, who flourished in a Topper.

When people who start through Sailability branch off into mainstream activity it's so rewarding. But we also recognise while it’s right for some people to be in the mainstream, for others it’s not, which is why we see everyone that sails with us as an individual.

7. Are you working with other local Sailability groups?

If anyone wants to ask us or come to see anything they are always welcome. So far we’ve interacted and offered some support to Whitefriars Sailability from Gloucestershire; David Durston, who was part of the British Paralympic squad with my daughter Blaire, is very involved there so there is a good relationship. We have also spoken to Chew Lake Association of Disabled Sailors (CLADS) too.

There has been a lot of interest in what we do, especially after we spoke at the Sailability Conference. I know how useful it was to speak to Belfast Lough Sailability at the conference, as they are run along the same lines as us and have a lot of the same challenges, so we have developed a good interaction with them too.

8. How would you personally like to see things evolving?

Just through Blaire I’ve seen the difference sport can make to a person’s life. One of my biggest frustrations is there are so many young people with disabilities in mainstream schools but at the moment it is so hard to find and get to them. They get ‘lost’ in the system and the funding just isn’t there currently to help identify them. This is something I would really like to see change.

I’d also like to get more and more sailors sailing competitively. We have also recently received a Community Sports Activator grant to help tackle the social isolation of the elderly by getting people in care homes or who live on their own out on the water.

Our aim has always been to have complete equality right across the board and that has never and will never change.