Floating Doctors - US Sailing's interview with Dr. Benjamin La Brot

by Jake Fish on 6 Nov 2009 It all started in Tanzania, 2005 with an empty backpack once filled with medical supplies. An aspiring American medical student was burdened with a sense unfulfillment when his supplies ran dry and scores of sick and injured villagers were left untreated.

Dr. Benjamin La Brot (Topanga, Calif.) remembers treating those with wounds, infections, and other ailments at the Masai Village. But what he remembers most about his trip is running out of medication and supplies before having the chance to treat the entire village. This powerless, overwhelming feeling served as motivation for the 33-year-old doctor to plan for a new mission; a mission that transcends the concept of providing effective aid and relief on an international scale that is both economically and environmentally friendly.

Four years later, La Brot, head of a nonprofit group called the Floating Doctors will set sail this week for a year-long medical mission aboard a 76-foot sailboat that carries 15 crew members and 20,000 pounds of medical supplies. The Floating Doctors will sail to 15 countries in Latin America and the Pacific Islands. They will not rely on ground and air transportation. The crew embarked on their trip on Nov. 1 from St. Augustine, Fla. in their boat, Southern Wind, donated by a Florida couple. The customized expedition boat was originally built in Ventura, Calif. in 1981.The volunteer crew has repaired the old boat, which is now a fully functioning mobile medical vehicle. They will visit Haiti, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Tuamotu Archipelago, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Melanesia. The Southern Wind has the capacity to travel over 250 miles by harnessing energy from the wind and sun.

This week, La Brot spoke with US Sailing on the Floating Doctors’ mission:

US SAILING: What inspired you to start the Floating Doctors program?

Dr. Benjamin La Brot: My last trip to Africa made me determined to go back to the developing world and bring more help, and as they say, ‘do what you know’—and what I know is medicine and the sea. By bringing the two greatest passions in my life together, my crew and I have found a solution to many of the challenges that face traditional medical missions—transport, storage, food, power, water, and housing. As all sailors know, on the water you HAVE to be self-sufficient and resourceful. At sea you have to get the most out of everything you have on board. If something breaks, you have to make it work. Instead of three tools for three jobs, you have one tool that you can use for all three jobs. If the situation changes, you have to adapt. And that is the essence of Floating Doctors medical care—to create the most lasting health benefits we can with what we have, while remaining versatile and creative in tackling health challenges in the communities we will visit.

US SAILING: Why was it important for the team to travel using a sailboat?

Dr. Benjamin La Brot: A sailboat is the ultimate green energy platform for this kind of mission. By harnessing the sun and the wind, we will transport and house our team and supplies, desalinate our own water, carry and prepare our food, process our own waste—we want to have as small a carbon footprint as possible, and leave only lasting health benefits in our wake. Also, when I calculated the cost in diesel of using a power vessel of equivalent size to conduct this mission, the cost of the diesel alone was several times our entire project budget. My last boat was a 43’ aluminum IOR racing sloop, which I was originally planning to use with a team of three or four other doctors, until the opportunity to get Southern Wind came. We can carry 20 crew and 20,000 pounds of medical supplies—we could have done this two ways: spend two million dollars, or the way we did it by bringing Southern Wind back to life through five months of daily hard labor.

US SAILING: What challenges will the team be faced with while sailing to each destination?

Dr. Benjamin La Brot: We have spent five months completely restoring our vessel, Southern Wind. She was donated to us and required a lot more labor than money; thankfully, even though we are all too familiar with the old saying 'B.O.A.T stands for ‘Break Out Another Thousand’.' Many of us have experience in working on boats, but some had very little—and none of us had ever attempted such a huge restoration before. We practically rebuilt the boat in the water from the keel up. The main benefit of that is that every crew member knows EVERY screw, nut, wire, etc. in the boat, and that kind of knowledge is priceless. Also, so much of the blood, sweat, and tears of every crew member here has found its way into the boat. We all feel connected to Southern Wind. En route, we are concerned primarily with piracy (carrying medical supplies can make you a target), the weather, navigating narrow atoll or river entrances or poorly charted, poorly marked harbors with unlighted boats and other hazards.

US SAILING: Why do you think it is important to 'give back' as you so generously do?

Dr. Benjamin La Brot: The Law of the Sea is always ‘stop and help’ because you never know when it might be YOU in trouble far away from any assistance. And if we all stopped and helped just a little, together we could accomplish great things. Sailing has made my dream possible, so I feel pretty indebted to those who came before and especially to those who, in the future, I hope will still have the opportunity hold their hand on the tiller and the feel of blue water under your keel.

To learn more about The Floating Doctors, please visit their website at http://floatingdoctors.com/

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