SWARKESTONE SAILING CLUB SAILABILITY
WHAT IS SAILABILITY?
Freedom. Tranquillity. Excitement.
Sailability Sailors
As a Sailability sailor you will have the opportunity to experience both the peace and the exhilaration of getting out onto the water. You can learn to sail yourself or you can act as crew for an experienced skipper. No previous experience is required.
You will have fun, gain skills, build confidence, achieve ambitions, and make new friends.
Sailability is open to anyone with any sort of disability. We believe in equality and we warmly welcome people of all ages and backgrounds. We have the equipment (ramps, accessible toilets, hoists and life jackets, for example) and expert volunteers to make sure you can sail and have a great time doing it.
Volunteers
Our volunteers who give their time happily so that other people can experience the thrill of sailing. If you become a volunteer you might help to ready the boats, assist people with their buoyancy aids and skipper one of our access boats so that a Sailability sailor can get out on the water (training is provided). Lots of the Sailability sailors’ carers become volunteers at Swarkestone.
There is free Sunday training (delivered by RYA qualified instructors) for carers and volunteers 9.30 to 12.30 on several Sundays between May and September.
Volunteers also operate the hoists, help sailors to get in and out of boats, welcome people, make tea and coffee, skipper boats when needed, organise the programme, arrange races, and launch the safety boats – but not all at once! How involved you get is entirely up to you.
Our Access boats
Our Hansa Access boats are mostly double-handed (two-seater). We also have some single-handed Access boats. They’re extremely stable, with a weighted keel that stops them capsizing. They have two sails, both of which can be quickly altered to sail in different weather conditions. Two of our boats can be sailed using electrically assisted steering, using either a small joystick or chin control. The rest are powered by sail alone. The day normally involves informal sailing in the morning, followed by racing in the afternoon.
Most of our Sailability sailors and volunteers continue to meet at the clubhouse every Wednesday outside of the sailing season for a chat or for some other activities. Some also sail further afield, e.g. at the famous “Bass Week Regatta” at Bassenthwaite Sailing Club in the beautiful Lake District. We also have trips for a sail on an accessible catamaran in the Solent, or Access dinghy sailing in Norfolk
