Blind Sailor

http://www.yle.fi/elavaarkisto/?s=s&g=1&ag=7&t=&a=3529
Blind (90yrs) oldtimer and a sailor The page is in finnish, and sorry to say so's the doc, but 4th video button from the top to the document...

 

Sorry, can't get the video to work. But what a ruddy achievement

Now

ARE THERE ANY EXCUSES LEFT?

 

The best sail trimmer I ever knew was blind and heard the set better then any sited person I knew.

 

In 1991 while at Chapman's School of Seamanship a group of us students went down to Key West for the weekend. On the way back to school we pitchpoled & rolled (8 times) the Chevy Suburban (with 18' cat in tow).

One of our classmates, Sean Hewing (sp?), was paralized from the waist down. The school was going to attempt to impliment a program for disabeled sailors to accomadate him, & others that might follow.

A true mariner cannot be kept from the sea.

Tim

 

Well there nothing wrong with a handicapped person... as long as he passed the test before sailing...

Some notorious pirate are ehmmm... you know what I mean, and still a legend

 

And then there was captain Blackburn of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Made a few Atlantic crossings alone in a dory in the eighteen hundreds------ without the use of his hands. How he lost his hands years before is another story.

A.

 

Stirring stuff, Tim

Sometimes we forget how privileged we really are

 

And what a story of endurance that was eh Alan! Some trip, some man!!

 

Strong toes . . .

 

Yeah... I just watched the movie, "Touching the Void" too---- about an Andes climb, four days crawling alone out of a cravasse and then across a glacier to base camp with a broken leg, true story against all odds. And here in Maine, the coldest night of the year, maybe 20 below later on.
Brrrrrr.
I think of a guy rowing offshore a hundred miles in snowy New England weather, and feel very snug indeed by my wood fire.

A.

 

I remember seeing something similar Alan, about a rock climber who after a fall into a crevasse, got his right arm broken and wedged beyond removal, behind a rock. After a few days of trying to free himself, he cut off his arm with a Swiss army knife and then climbed out and back to safety.

It's cold here too, the last couple of days it's been in the 50's and low at night in the upper 30's. I know it doesn't sound bad, but that's as cold as my ex-wife's heart for a Florida guy.

 

Kinda chilly then PAR, good job you got out of that relationship then! Life is too short as it is without that sort of interferance, mate.

 

Good point, Trev. Makes any excuses the rest of us might want to give sound pretty lame!

I was fortunate to spend a little time with Erik Weihenmeyer a few years ago, just before he began his attempt on Mt Everest. At that point he had climbed the highest peak on every other continent. Erik's mother died shortly after he went totally blind. Talk about overcoming obstacles.

He has a terrific attitude and sense of humor. When he signs autographs, if he senses that the person is lingering, reading the signature, he usually says, "My handwriting really sucks, doesn't it?"

 

The first coxswain I went on patrol with is disabled in a wheelchair. We simply need to get to the boat early and swing his winch out over the finger pier he does all the rest.

 

Not detracting from the issue under discussion, how about this tough old *******...