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Seattle P-I Plus Getaways: Boundless horizons
By M.L. Lyke
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Lumpy gray clouds blanket the sky, with only a few holes of baby blue. Suddenly the sun bursts through, beaming light and warmth on the skipper of the Surprise.
A smile plays on his windswept face.
"It doesn't get any better than this," says Bob Ewing, one of the founders of the Footloose Sailing Association for disabled sailors. "Every time we're out, I say it doesn't get any better than this."
His curled fingers rest on the tiller of his own 22-foot, sloop-rigged sailboat. His atrophied legs are arranged cross-legged in front of him. His wheelchair is stashed in the berth up in the bow. His mutt, Meggie, sniffs the southerly breeze blowing across Lake Washington, nose skyward.
Out here, fair winds blow on unfair fates.
"Sailing gives you a sense of freedom and independence," says Ewing, 46, left a quadriplegic after a foolhardy, youthful dive off a bridge broke his neck. "It's like driving a car when you're disabled. You're suddenly equal to everyone else."
An ultrasound sonographer and competitive racer on the disabled sailing circuit, Ewing helped found Footloose seven years ago. He's still battling to garner support and funds for the non-profit group.
"Disabled sailing has really taken off across North America," he says, describing the docks, boats, land and buildings donated to groups in other cities. Some groups even have boats equipped with sip-and-puff controls that allow "high quads" paralyzed from the neck down to control sails by blowing into tiny tubes.
"Seattle is really behind the curve on this," says Ewing.
The association, with a shoestring budget of $5,000 and an 11-member board of directors, introduces people with various disabilities to the intricacies and the joys of sailing aboard two specially equipped boats. Roller furling jibes allow sailors to run the boats from the cockpit. Transfer boxes help move the severely disabled from dock to deck, and rotating seats adjust to the boat's heel.
Lessons are provided by volunteers such as able-bodied seaman Andy King, who trains sailors in safety procedures and makes sure everyone has a life vest. "The rewarding part is telling them what to do and watching them figure out how to do it," says King.
"It's a training program for me, too," he adds, smiling. "You learn brinkmanship."
While there is always an able-bodied sailor aboard to help, the disabled run the lines and man the tiller.
Or woman the tiller.
After her first turn in the cockpit, Marlaina Lieberg yelled to a boat that had pulled alongside: "You'd better watch out! There's a blind person sailing this boat!"
Lieberg wrote in the Footloose newsletter that she had been frightened when she first stepped on board. "I did not think my foot, attached to my not very long leg, would ever find the seat onto which I was assured I'd be stepping."
But with some coaching from Ewing, she was soon listening to the flapping of canvas to determine the set of the sail, and using the feel of the wind on her cheeks to determine the boat's angle.
"It was like dancing or flying or horseback riding, where a person who is blind can take control of the movement and feel complete safety and complete oneness with the movement itself," she wrote.
On land, movement can be a laborious, frustrating experience for the disabled. In board the boat, the Footloose sailors moved haltingly, coaxing stubborn body parts, grabbing one another's hands for support, faces scrunched with effort.
But on the water, with a light wind blowing out of the south, movement can become an effortless joy.
"Your body is at ease," says Footloose sailor Saul Pempe. "You can reprocess your sense of yourself."
Pempe is part of the crew aboard the Klickitat, a 21-foot Columbia with a handicapped parking sticker affixed to the rigging. There are four stroke victims aboard -- including Pempe -- as well as an avid sailor losing his sight to retinal degeneration.
Canes and crutches clack on the floorboards.
Bonds deepen on the boat cushions.
The sailors swap stories of trauma -- "Did you know when you were stroking?" -- and stories of determination -- "I had to learn how to swim all over again, using one hand."
They talk about skewed perceptions. They may be only a mile from shore, but they're a thousand miles from the stares and stigmas so familiar on land.
"The more you examine what people think about what the disabled can and can't do," says Pempe, "the more you realize a lot of it is a crock."
Don Risan, 49, is at the tiller. He leans forward, words slowly forming on his lips.
"Speech ... UW ... two years," Risan says, explaining how he entered the University of Washington speech therapy program two years ago after a stroke destroyed his ability to speak.
"Only ... spoke ... one ... word."
Sue Hunt, 64, smiles reassuringly at him. She couldn't speak a single word when she had her stroke 18 years ago, she tells him. "You'll get it back," she says, with only a trace of a slur. "It just takes time."
Under her jacket, she wears a turquoise T-shirt that reads: "Life's a reach and then ... you jibe."
A breeze picks up. The sails fill. The Klickitat flies across the green water, and the sailors fly with it. They grow quiet, smiling to themselves, lost in another world.
All disabled people are welcome to join. Able-bodied sailors are also needed to help participants get on and off boats, give lessons and accompany participants on sails.
For a schedule of upcoming events and other information, call the association at 206-382-2680.
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