At the Helm and Sailing Free, He Loses Feeling of Disability

When Duncan Milne set sail for Catalina last summer alone in a 12-foot sailboat, he left his wheelchair behind.

“Sailing is one of the few sports in which a person can get out of a wheelchair and get involved on an equal basis with a person who can walk,” says the 41-year-old Milne, a paraplegic.

Last year, to prove his point, Milne not only sailed to Catalina, he also folded up his wheelchair, stowed it aboard a 32-foot racing catamaran, put on a life jacket and, with three other disabled friends, competed in the Ensenada Race.

“The four of us were among a crew of seven who sailed the boat,” says Milne, who has been confined to a wheelchair for 11 years as the result of a motorcycle accident. “And each team member, disabled and non-disabled alike, shared in the experience equally.”

After 28 hours, the boat finished the 110-mile race a respectable 7th in its division. “Of course, we went out with the idea of winning, but it is the competing that counts,” says Milne, a former physical education instructor at Cal State Fullerton.

Milne, who began sailing while he was in college, is co-founder of the American Wheelchair Sailing Assn., a nonprofit organization that was founded in Newport Beach in 1987 but is now headquartered in Long Beach. (For information about the association, call (213) 438-0463.)

“The organization is founded on the belief that disabled people should be able to use the (boating) facilities in Newport Beach and other areas,” Milne says.

The need for such an organization became apparent to Milne when he and some friends began looking for convenient access to the water to go sailing. “Pretty quickly, we realized that there was no easy (public) place for a person in a wheelchair to go boating--except on the big sightseeing boats,” he said.

As a result, Milne and a handful of other disabled sailors borrowed a few boats and arranged with the Newport Harbor Yacht Club to use the club’s launching facilities on Mondays when the club was closed. “As word spread, we got more and more people coming every Monday to participate and our ranks grew,” Milne says.

Eventually, the informal organization was incorporated and granted nonprofit status. Soon its members began competing in local regattas, and the association became a fully insured member of the United States Yacht Racing Union.

Today, the association has 50 to 75 active members and a fleet of five boats, including one 22-foot Santana and four mini-12s (miniature versions of a 12-meter racing yacht) like the one Milne sailed to Catalina. The mini-12s are ideal for disabled sailors, Milne says, because the small vessels are not easily capsized and can be sailed completely from the cockpit, without a lot of movement on the part of the sailor.

Until last summer, the association was headquartered in Newport Beach in a donated office with dock space. But when the building was sold, the group lost its free facilities.

Unable to find another slip in Newport Beach, Milne approached the Long Beach Marine Department, which came through with a slip for the Santana. The group’s mini-12s are being stored in a Newport Beach boatyard.

“We had someone who wanted to give us a 32-foot sailboat, but we didn’t have any place to put it,” Milne says.

With part of its fleet in Long Beach and part in Newport Beach, the organization has had difficulty attracting new sailors, according to Milne. “But I expect that to change, especially as summer comes and people start to think about getting out on the water again.”

One new member who is eagerly awaiting warmer weather is Chris Fitzgerald, who suffers from a disease that causes brittle bones, and forces him to walk with crutches. “Being able to compete with people who are ‘normal’ is a relief for me,” says Fitzgerald, who learned to sail through the association last year.

Both Fitzgerald and Milne are working to find sponsors to enable them to go to Sweden this year to compete in the 1989 World Cup, a sailing competition for mini-12s.

Last year, Milne and three other disabled sailors staged a successful fund-raising campaign that enabled them to travel to Helsinki to compete in the 1988 World Cup. The disabled team came in 40th in a fleet of 69.

“We want to go again this year, and we want to go on the Ensenada Race again, too,” Milne says. “Right now we are actively seeking a boat to borrow that we could race to Ensenada. It is something we want to do on behalf of the whole disabled community.”

The disabled sailors make no permanent changes to the boat in order to make it easier to sail, Milne says. “Our philosophy has always been rather than adapt the boat, we adapt ourselves to the environment,” he explained. “That way we can sail any boat. What we did last year with the boat we sailed to Ensenada was to string additional lines on the boat. Since none of us can walk, we dragged ourselves along the deck with the lines.”

As for safety at sea, all the sailors--abled and disabled--wore harnesses to prevent them from falling overboard. “I don’t think that for the experienced person, sailing is any more dangerous than it is for an able-bodied person,” Milne says. “I don’t think you’d get yourself into a situation you can’t get out of.”

Although last year’s Ensenada crew consisted of both able-bodied and disabled sailors, Milne hopes to sail this year’s race with disabled crew members only.