Sailing for vision impaired

[Bull City]

My adult daughter has a vision impairment which affects her central vision. She like to go sailing, but doesn't do very well holding the boat on course. The boat is very simple - no electronics. Does anyone know of any simple aids or ideas that can help?

Thanks.

 

[allene222]

One of the boats in our fleet has a blind sailor. They say he is the best helmsman sailing upwind. Not so good off the wind. He sails by feel. It actually works pretty well even if you have sight. I think there is a network of blind sailors but I take it that is not what you are after.

 

[Bull City]

She's not completely blind. She can read large print books, and can find her way around town, although she doesn't drive. It's just the central vision. She can't see tell-tales, and I don't think she could read the compass, unless she had her face right up to it. And that wouldn't be a fun way to sail anyway.

Allen, sailing by feel is probably part of what I'm looking for. Maybe if we started with beam reaching, she could get a feel for the relative wind direction.

 

[allene222]

I think the best point of sail is a beat. Reaching and running were harder for the blind sailor. But there is a network of blind sailors and your daughter might find them helpful. She may even qualify and enjoy their races. I believe they have a sighted coach either on the boat or on land. I can try and find out more if you want.

 

[allene222]

Google "Blind sailing"

 

[Onrust1368]

I would get in touch with Vince Morvillo of Houston, Texas... an amazing sailor, and a great guy... blind... won the Ensign Nationals against sighted competition about a decade ago...

 

[alteredst88]

Great thread with some good links to sailing resources for the visually impaired:

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=175360

 

[The Ventuckian]

A former Paralympian sailor JP CREIGNOU has about 10% field of vision and is delcared legally blind.
He mostly crewed and had singular focus. To my knowledge he was on JR Duggans's Sonar team and Jen French's Skud 2 medals.

I'd like to see an instrument like the Shift with a audible sound that lets you know when you are on target or getting off.
This would be a huge help to the vision impaired.

 

[allene222]

It may or may not be of interest but my android app, StartLine, can talk and will tell you what direction the mark is as well as calling the start. It also auto switches from mark to mark so setting it up ahead of time will allow it walk you through the start and then every mark, all without touching it. I like to use it that way because it allows me to keep focus on the tell tails and yet know how I am doing relative to the mark, how far to the layline, how fast I am going etc. It is free although you do need to qualify for a licence, which is also free. The downside is that it is a bit complicated but the upside is that it works really well. You can ping marks as well but it is most useful on courses using knows or government marks.

It doesn't tell you where the starting line is so probably would need some modification there if you really were blind. At the marks it will say things like "leave to starboard" and "Left 3", "100 meters to layline", "at layline" and other things I can't recall. Any of that can be changed (by me) to match the needs of a blind sailor if there is interest.

Here is a link.

 

[allene222]

On second thought... maybe racing is not the goal here and even if it were, then one should join an organized effort. So maybe more appropriate is something simple like my "Knotmeter" app and add speech to that. Or even a new app that does what a blind sailor would want. I am open to doing some modifications of what I have done if it would be helpful. Just to be clear, I charge nothing, make nothing, and there are no ads. Right now the Knotmeter shows speed and heading as well as wind shift but perhaps just the first two and have the voice call them out. Anyway, I am open to suggestions but only if it would be generally useful. Apparently there are 441 people using it. Not that many I guess... Well, just a thought.

 

[TsubG]

I am a centrally blind sailor and have tried many things over the years to be able to keep sailing. I don't race any more but I still daysail in the cruising boat as much as I can. Mostly light air, nice weather stuff on a large lake. Two suggestions:

1 - Really big tell tales are great. I use 1 inch and 2 inch wide black ripstop nylon ones I bought from goodwinds.com. They are actually kite streamer tails that I cut to 18-24 inches.. I stick them to the sails with circles I cut from adhesive backed insignia cloth from sailrite.com. The high contrast and large size make them easily visible and work pretty well, just be prepared for every person on the dock telling you they are too big to be accurate/useful. Also works on shrouds/backstay for offwind steering.

2 - Contrasting color backgrounds. When my vision was a little better, I used a 4ft diameter circle of black insignia cloth on each side of the sail and white yarn or ribbon in the center for tell tales. The black dot makes the contrasting color yarn/ribbon more visible. White on black is way better for low vision than black on white due to halation problems.

 

[TsubG]

There are some audio compasses on the market that might work for your daughter too. Check out the MaxPAC Compass at blindsailing.net They are not cheap but are actually made for blind sailors. No personal experience with them yet but I have been looking at these (ha) again recently.

There are some smartphone apps out there that claim similar functionality but I haven't found one that works well yet.

 

[mxm]

A good sport for the blind. A good sorted boat is typically a pretty controlled environment which makes finding and doing things not too difficult for those with little or no sight. Also one of the few sports where a blind person can involve themselves successfully in a team and in open competition which is socially something of a plus.

FWIW from personal experience, helming if blind is not the same as if sighted. Leave out reaching when starting. Upwind is 90% feel of the boat and not too hard. DDW isn't too bad either, harder to get within a degree or two but not too bad. Reaching is very difficult unless you sail somewhere which is very constant in terms of wind strength and direction, does such a place exist? Basically changes in apparent wind strength and direction when reaching are too large and judging what changes are caused by lousy helming, what by velocity and direction change in the wind and what by trim changes is, well, challenging. If you can see enough to hold a course based on seeing something of an unmoving nature in the distance not a problem, if not then challenging without sighted input.

Lots of other tasks on boats other than helming of course and most of them doable to a reasonable standard with your eyes closed.

Not convinced on the merits of audio compasses and similar while racing, definitely have their place cruising though.