Lymington Sailability, sailing, disabled, disability, hampshire, south coast, solent, uk

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I am pleased to be able to report that our sailing season got off to a flying start. The weather was kind to us and we had some super sails, thanks to our Bosun and the shore crew.

Over the Easter weekend we had a party of 12 children from London come and visit us. All of the children had either emotional or physical disabilities, in some cases both.

It was wonderful to see these children who on a daily basis face many challenges, have a huge smile on their faces saying it was "awesome" to describe their visit to us. I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Lytton Lawn campsite who allowed the children to camp there for the weekend at a greatly reduced rate.

We are hoping that the children will visit again towards the end of the season.

A new dimension has come to our sailing this year. A private sponsor is allowing us the use of his Crabber 24. 'Mordialloc' is a traditionally built boat with both a large cockpit and roomy accommodation below. She is a very sturdy sea going boat. This will allow us to go out on longer sails and in slightly rougher weather. We are most grateful to her owner for allowing us the privilege of using her.

The Advanced Travel Partner International have come on board with us, and have very generously sponsored us to the tune of £10000.

This has enabled us to buy a tractor to help launch and recover our boats. It has also helped buy our new safety boat.

Finding funding in these lean times is hard. Without the support of companies such as ATPI who have the foresight to see how we can change lives, we would not be able to move forward in getting more bums on boats and more smiles on faces.

Along with our bigger projects there are also our ever escalating everyday running costs. Things like insurance, fuel, training and repairs all cost money.

The local community as always has come up trumps. Waitrose chose us as there 'community matters', Jaeger held 2 very successful fashion evenings for us, Radio Solent made us one of their 'community chest' recipients. This has enabled us to buy new high visibility vests for our volunteers to wear during ground operations. We are getting one of our volunteers power boat level 2 instructor qualified, and it will also pay for a group of volunteers to get trained in first aid.

We try very hard to raise funds. This year we did our round the island challenge again. We doubled the amount of boats and people taking part. Three of our Trimaran's entered and we were delighted Cowes Sailability put forward a boat.

Once again community spirit shone through! The Royal Lymington Yacht Club allowed us to use their club as a base and loaned us one of their RIBs. For two thirds of going around the island we had a marvellous sail, with last years winner Tom leading for much of the time.

We had known that at Bembridge we would hit trouble with both the tide and the wind against us. Tom decided to stay island side, I opted for the mainland. Conditions deteriorated very quickly. I had said to my buddy Jo, we needed to face that this was now a test of endurance more than one of skill.

Despite being two up our boat was very light (a pair of light weights) and greatly over powered. Without weight holding her down we could not get enough power to drive the main to go about. We decided we were going to put in a reef.

Right at that moment we received a radio call to say "race off, there has been a capsize." Tom had gone over. Fortunately he had cleared the boat and within a minute, thanks to the safety crew, was out of the water and on their boat, unharmed.

Alas, we were instructed to drop our sails and had to face a long tow home. The trophy is with our secretary awaiting next years even bigger race. Meanwhile normal sailing continues. It is always wonderful to see new faces as well as old. Do something life changing, come and give us a go!

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributes in whatever way to the success of Lymington Sailability - you really do make a difference!

Aly Gunn, Chairman Lymington SailAbility

Aly and Jo at the start of the race

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