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What started with nine sailors and three boats 15 years ago has grown into the biggest sailability programme in the country.
Sailability Wellington celebrated their 15th anniversary last week with a special dinner at the Porirua Working Men's Club. Olympian and America's Cup winner Josh Junior spoke at the event, entertaining the 100 guests with stories from Emirates Team New Zealand's successful campaign, but it was only one feature of a signficant night.
Some of the nine who participated in the first day at the Evans Bay Yacht & Motor Boat Club in 2002 attended and, incredibly, seven are still part of the programme.
There are now 190 sailors with disabilities actively involved as well as 50 volunteers, 22 yachts and a raft of safety boats. The programme operates out of three bases (Evans Bay, Seaview Marina and Titahi Bay Boating Club) five days a week.
"We are bigger than your average yacht club," Sailability Wellington club captain Don Manning said, "and the biggest sailability programme in the country.
"Most of our members come back year after year and we have a waiting list of 90 which we are trying to overcome by building a new $150,000 jetty at Porirua. We hope to have the money for that in the next month or so."
It's just one area Manning hopes to expand. They have been asked about setting a base up on Lake Henley in the Wairarapa and they're also investigating offering the programme to people from the Kapiti Coast.
"I just want to get people with disabilities into sailing," Manning said. "We take people from therapeutic sailing right through to our race squad."
New Zealand presently has one world champion in Sarah Dunkley in the Liberty class but there are also a handful of other talented sailors including Michael Jones and Alexander O'Connor who were there on the first day 15 years ago.
Sailability Wellington are a charitable trust that provides sailing opportunities for people with any form of disability. For more information, see sailability-wellington.org.nz/ or contact Don Manning on sailabilitywgtn@xtra.co.nz
