Technique: Inclusive yacht sailing

Inclusive yacht sailing

Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: Keelboat classes
Forum Name: Technique
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Topic: Inclusive yacht sailing

Posted By: mole
Subject: Inclusive yacht sailing
Date Posted: 20 Jul 18 at 9:12pm

This forum seems a bit dead.

So here is something to chew on.

My brother and I have 'adapted' a Corby 26 for using as a racing yacht with a wheelchair user.Thanks to Mr Corby's design of moving the tiller pivot forward in the boat, there is adequate room for positioning a wheelchair user behind the tiller at the stern of the boat.

The person occupying the wheelchair in this case is my nephew, Anthony. He loves it.

My brother and I are seasoned sailors, so this all takes place within reasonable limits. We have recently embarked on this project, but so far the feedback has been very positive and we have a couple of good results to date.

I'll update you on our experience

thanks

Mark

Replies:

Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 21 Jul 18 at 7:12am

Not sure about starting the post with a negative, the forum is as busy as we all make it.

The yacht conversion sounds like a great plan. I saw video at a Sailability conference where the boom was used as a hoist, and the inside had been converted to enable the young lady too. If memory serves me right, they had gimbled the steering position, too. I suspect they had a good source of funding, though.

Your conversion sounds like it might be more attainable for the average sailor. Do you have any photos to share to show how you did it, please?

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686

Posted By: mole
Date Posted: 29 Jul 18 at 1:15pm

Hi Rupert

Thanks for your response.

Essentially we did minimal changes to the boat.

We removed the mainsheet track and replaced with a dyneema bridle.

The aft deck area was reinforce with 12mm marine ply to put the wheelchair on, picking up on the holes from the mainsheet track. It also had 4 d-rings installed to use as tie down points for the wheelchair. The backstay was modified from a single point central connecting, to a split Y backstay with hard points either side of the transom.

The loading is done using standard ramps, 4 in total. 2 from the dock to the boats transom and 2 from the transom onto the aft deck area. It takes 3 of us to load Anthony safely.

The wheelchair itself is a 'standard' manual wheelchair with smaller wheels. It has been modified by having a motorsport bucket seat mounted to it using its existing mountings and some stainless steel bars.

As mentioned we tie it down to the d-rings using ratchet straps through the frame of the wheelchair.

So far this all works really well.

Here is a pic of us sailing last week in Ramsgate Week

https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/photo/215338

There are some more pics on the Ramsgate Week Facebook page if you want to see some more

Happy to share more information if anyone wants to know more

cheers

Mark

Posted By: mole
Date Posted: 21 Oct 18 at 8:10pm

For those who are interested.

This is how we load our wheelchair user on our Corby 26

Easier next year after fitting an inboard engine!

Enjoy

https://www.facebook.com/rtyc.ramsgate/videos/502713920244231/