A Win-Wind Situation

Today, Urban Miyares is somewhere beyond Santa Catalina Island, pointed toward Hawaii, still blind, still hard of hearing, still without much of the feeling in his legs -- and, most definitely, still surrounded by a sea of uncertainty.

Chances are, however, he’s having the time of his life.

Life after Vietnam, that is.

Miyares, 55, is one of six sailors aboard B’Quest, a 40-foot sailboat that was among 26 vessels that started Tuesday in the 42nd biennial Transpacific Yacht Race, a 2,225-mile run from Los Angeles to Honolulu. The rest of the 58 boats -- the largest field since 1985 -- will start Friday or Sunday in a staggered format designed to enable boats in all classes to finish as closely together as possible.

B’Quest, as a Division 5 entry, won’t break any speed records, nor is it considered a threat to any of the bigger, faster boats, notably race favorites Pyewacket and Pegasus 77.

But considering who’s on board, what they’ve been through and the incredible challenge that lies ahead, this determined team is in a class by itself.

Miyares, a sailing fanatic since childhood, was a platoon sergeant in Vietnam when a mysterious illness set in. Vomiting, weight loss and blurred vision were just some of the symptoms. Frequent visits to sick call were met, he says, with rebuff from superiors.

Things finally came to a head in the field while his platoon was under attack and Miyares, amid the mortar fire and gunfire, the yelling and screaming, succumbed to the illness and fell flat on his face in a rice paddy.

“I remember hitting the water and that’s the last thing I remember,” he said during an interview beside B’Quest at Cabrillo Way Marina, a day before setting out to make Transpac history as part of the only disabled crew to compete in a storied race that dates to 1906.

Two days after losing consciousness -- he was originally presumed dead and briefly put in a body bag, before somebody discovered he was still breathing -- he woke up in a Saigon hospital and was told he had developed Type 1 diabetes, and had fallen into a diabetic coma. Although he could still walk, he lost all sensation in both legs within six months. Eight years later, he learned that some of his many complications were related to the herbicide, Agent Orange, used as a defoliant in the war effort.

By 1985, Miyares was totally blind.

Then, in 1989, he was invited sailing by fellow veteran Bob Hettiger, a paraplegic.

“And I started feeling comfortable again,” Miyares said.

Hettiger’s love affair with sailing began after he’d suffered his injuries in a 1968 car accident, less than a month after returning from Vietnam. His inspiration came from watching the boats zip around Mission Bay.

In 1990, the two veterans helped found Challenged America, a therapeutic and rehabilitation sailing program in San Diego. Almost immediately, the dream to sail a Transpac was born.

Finally, the dream is reality.

The six-man crew, which has Joshua Ross as skipper and the only “able-bodied” sailor, will share duties, including time at the helm of the Tripp 40, which is fitted with a motorized helmsman’s chair, customized trimmers’ seats and a companionway elevator.

“These guys are my friends so it’s really no different than sailing with my friends,” said Ross, 32, a career sailor and director of the Challenged America sailing program.

“We don’t focus on disabilities. We look at abilities. On any crew, there’s someone who can do one thing better than another and with a team you add up to one functioning unit.”

And what an enthusiastic unit it is.

“It’s total excitement,” exclaimed Sam Gloor, 34, who suffered a violent mountain bike crash in 1993, which rendered him a quadriplegic, without feeling from the chest down.

“I keep telling these guys that I’m practicing my yell that I’m going to do the first time I’m driving down that 30-foot face [with the trade winds at my back]. The first time I’m surfing at the wheel, I’m going to be yelling, ‘Yo-hooooo!’ ”

Scott Meide, 57, another Vietnam vet, was aboard a patrol boat when a mortar explosion “blew my arm off immediately” he grimly recalled. “Luckily, I was thrown up against the bulkhead and was not thrown into the ocean, so I was able to be tended to by my crewmates.”

Meide learned to sail on Lake Michigan, after returning home to Racine, Wis. During a trip to Southern California, he met Miyares and Hettiger, “and we’ve just been at it ever since.”

“For me,” he added, “this is just a heck of a sailing voyage. I’m just looking forward to the long sail. I’m interested in how I’m going to perform; if I’m going to hold out OK.”

With that, the last member of the group, Gregory Scott, gave a nod, as if to assure that Meide, a skilled mechanic, would be a boon to the effort.

Scott, who was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis when he was 3, is unique to the group in that he grew up with his disability, which has caused lasting joint damage in his hands and elsewhere on his body.

“They overcame the challenge of losing the ability, and I’ve battled with it always,” he said. “But I have great respect for their drive to continue after having the ability and then losing it, and finding a new way to get through life.”

For now, however, their focus is on only one thing: finding a place called paradise.