volunteering for sailability
Last week, me and a few buds from PHBYC volunteered for Sailability Philippines, a program that teaches disabled persons how to sail. Aquaman and biel volunteered their sailing knowledge to be instructors on Access dinghies and teach the newbies how to sail. Arvin skippered a 40′+ sailing yacht that would carry a film crew from the TV show gameplan which was also there to take 
footage of sailability in action. Leading sailability was weremermaid she was also the group’s spokeperson. since I had too little sailing experience to teach any one, I volunteered my boat. 
here’s a picture of one of the access dinghies with Aquaman in it and biel (in the blue and yellow pfd) getting ready to board. ====>
With the help of Arvin, we set up Ceol Beag at the MYC parking lot and carried it down the dinghy ramp. I then brought it to the dock to pick up Bong, a polio victim who’s also part of the sailability program. Bong works at the MYC restoring boats and stuff and actually has had more sailing experience than most of the sailablity sailors there.
With Bong at the helm we went out of the breakwater and went out to join the Philippine sailing team at their practice. But we knew well enough to keep our distance. Watching the sailing team at practice was like watching ballet on the water. all those synchronized tacks and gybes were fun to watch.
After a few minutes in the water, Aquaman boarded ceol beag and bong transfered to an Access. The Access 2.3 dinghy is an amazing little boat, especially
developed for the disabled and newbie sailors. Steering is controlled with a joystick and all lines lead to the helmsman. Seating is on a very comfortable in a hammock type seat. It is also very stable, courtesy with its 60 pound centerboard. I was also able to try out the Access later in the afternoon. It was fun, but a little to tame for my taste though.
After lunch other sailors also got to try my spindrift for the first time. Weremermaid was one of them, one leg and all. Mermaid has had plenty of experience sailing dinghies and even hobies, so for her, handling the spindrift was easy. She really took the boat out through its paces, doing rolling tacks and 
several hard gybes. The racer that she is, she was looking for hiking straps and side wings for hiking purposes, but I told her that the spindrift was designed as a working tender and not a racer, and thus its very simple deck layout.
An ex laser sailor, XP also got to try out the spindrift and made several recommendations on the rigging and seating arrangements. He was so impressed with the boat and even talked about the possibility of creating a one-design racing class for it. I’ve since given him a quote on how much it would be cost to have a commisioned build. but so far no orders yet. here’s me crossing my fingers
With the help of the other PHBC guys, we packed up the boat. A small crowd gathered around it while we were doing so, amazed mostly by it’s protability. It is very rare that you see a perfectly good boat taken apart in half and loaded into a van.
