These Girls Can!

by RYA on 18 Jun 2015 You can't have missed the ads showcasing Sport England's 'This Girl Can' campaign - to inspire females to get more active - over the past few months.

'This Girl Can' is as much about promoting physical activity as a way of meeting new people, making new friends and strengthening existing friendships, building confidence, enjoying the challenge of learning new skills and physical and emotional well-being as it is about being 'fit'.

If you would like to inspire more females to try sailing, or have got a brilliant idea how to do it, get in touch with your local Sailability Disability Development Officers (contacts to the right) who would love to hear from you!

In the meantime meet these awesome women who are already showing exactly how 'This Girl Can' thanks to Sailability!

Meet Tilly

“The sense of freedom when I'm out of my wheelchair and sailing my own boat, is so uplifting.”

Now 15, Rudyard Sailability's Tilly Griffiths has been sailing since first sitting on her mum’s lap in a boat aged three. At seven, she took the tiller of a dinghy for the first time and never looked back.

Yet at the age of one, Tilly was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a genetic condition weakening her muscles. SMA means she is unable to walk and uses a powered wheelchair to move around. She also has to manage regular chest infections and secretions, with her suction unit within reach at all times.

Sailing has given her the chance to compete on a level playing field in a way other sports can’t, even racing against her older sister Candice.

“I love having the opportunity to leave my powerchair and have a different seating position and a different way of moving. It is so good for my posture as I have to work really hard to maintain myself upright and keep my head up too,' Tilly explains.

Tilly sails ‘Barbie’ - a bright pink Access dinghy with a light-touch electric joystick attached to her with a velcro strap. She sails twice a week during the season, from March to October, but she and her family are involved in the various activities of the club all year including fundraising and PR events.

'I absolutely love it when my friends come to the lake and they see me doing something that they can't. Sailing is a precious gift that can't be taken away from me.”

Meet Blaire

When CRPS and Fixed Dystonia - a neurological condition sparking chronic pain and muscular spasms particularly affecting her lower back and legs – saw Blaire Hannan become a wheelchair user in her mid-teens, she thought her sporty days were over.

But a move to a new school and the chance to meet the school’s special educational needs coordinator – or SENCO for short – introduced her to sailing, a sport that would become her life.

By 2011 Blaire, from Bristol, had got so good at sailing she was invited to join the Paralympic Transition Squad, training with the country’s best Paralympic sailors towards the goal of one day representing ParalympicsGB at a future Games herself.

Now 25 she says: “When I went into the wheelchair, I moved school. The SENCO had just been involved in setting up Bristol Sailability and knowing I was very sporty before my diagnosis, he encouraged my to have a go at sailing. So I did and never looked back.

“Sailing is now an occupation and a hobby for me. I am now an RYA Race Coach and closely work with Sailability to help get all sailors on the water.”

After the breakdown of her muscles put her at risk of organ failure and facing death, an emergency operation at Frenchay Hospital in her Bristol saw two battery-powered deep brain stimulators inserted to help block messages from the brain that damaged the rest of her body. The result was she regained movement in her upper body, with the stimulator ‘reprogramming’ her brain 24/7 for the rest of her life.

Now a familiar face on the 2.4mR racing circuit hails the impact sailing's had on determining her future.

“The biggest value I learnt being part of the Paralympic Transition Squad was the Paralympic ‘can-do’ attitude. This came at such a crucial point in my life, and I think is responsible for me achieving so many things we thought would be impossible. They taught me that if you can't go round a barrier, go through it!”

Meet Natasha (BEM)

“Sailing for me is a mental challenge. I have to constantly assess the situation and try to ensure my boat performs to her optimum. I need to be stretched mentally and sailing does that for me, and then some!'

Not many teenagers can say they have sailed the 60 miles around the Isle of Wight, across the English Channel, 450 miles around England’s South West coast and scaled a mountain all before they turned 18. But Natasha Lambert is no ordinary teenager.

Born with quadriplegic athertoid cerebral palsy, which affects her speech and control of her movements, essentially the messages from Natasha’s brain don't go to her muscles.

Natasha uses a wheelchair and a pioneering special walking aid - a body brace with four wheels - called a Hart Walker. She needs help 24 hours a day.

Yet ever since discovering sailing aged nine, as a passenger on a holiday with the Calvert Trust in Devon, the Isle of Wight teen has been pushing herself to the limits on the sea in her 'sip and puff' boat, 'Miss Isle Too' and her efforts have raised over £53,000 for charity.

“I am described as severely disabled but I can get out to sea, challenge myself, the elements and challenge perceptions. There are no barriers in sailing. You have to know your own limits and ability and go challenge yourself!”

Natasha, who turns 18 at the end of June, is most recently tackled her latest challenge Miss Isle's Capital Venture, which saw her sailing from Cowes, east along the coast past Dover and around, up the Thames and into the city of London. She then walked the Square Mile to collect some cheques from banks in the City!

'Capital Venture' aims to raise awareness of disabled sailing and funds for her new charity being set up to teach other people to sail using sip-puff technology in her Artemis 20 keelboat, so other youngsters with similar needs to Natasha can learn to sail too.