Transcript of Born to be BAADS

Greg: I was a high steel iron worker, one of those crazy guys who hangs steel and builds skyscrapers. And one afternoon in 1982 I got knocked off the building by a beam and I fell seven stories to the ground. The fall was really interesting but the landing was a bit messy. And that's the day I became a paraplegic.

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Narrator: That's Greg Williams, an iron worker and ex-Marine who threw what he describes as a "pity-party" for himself when he first found out he didn't have use of his legs anymore. But after a few years, his attitude changed.

Greg: I'm not your average gimp. It's one of those things. I refuse to be classified as only a disabled person. I’m big on doing things that people think I shouldn’t. Things that you don’t really normally associate with people in wheelchairs are very attractive to me.

Narrator: Like ATV riding, or rock crawling or popping wheelies that could put professional bikers to shame. And sailing. Becoming paraplegic, though, had introduced him to a whole new sport.

Greg: It was probably the most freeing experience I'd had since I was in the wheelchair. The exhilaration was just unreal. You know, I just, I felt like I was flying on the water. And it was, it was just wonderful. I can't even hardly describe it because it was, it felt so good.

Narrator: Hi, I’m Douglas and welcome to the Idealist Community podcast. In this episode, we explore what it means to be part of San Francisco’s Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors (or BAADS), a group whose philosophy is to share the joy of sailing with anyone and everyone, no matter what limitations a person may appear to have. How? By pairing two people with complimentary disabilities to make one sailor, or by using inventive technology to enable the more daring to sail alone.

We talk with three sailors: Greg Williams, Cristina Rupke and Ed Gallagher, to find out how they're pushing the boundaries of technology, as well as their own.

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Narrator: As beautiful as the San Francisco Bay is, it isn't that easy to steer a boat on. It’s pretty finicky, with unpredictable weather and strong winds making it one of the most challenging waters in the world. But if you’re lucky enough to catch the roar of the baseball crowd from the nearby Giants stadium, or a glimpse of the artwork on the old buildings hugging the bay, it makes it all worth it. And most of the time, the sun is shining.

[sound of lapping waves]

BAADS draws people out of their homes and into the sunshine and open sea, matching disabled sailors together to create competitive crews. This concept of pairing two people to make one sailor, known as co-ability, was born during the late 80's in Lake Merritt, CA when two friends, a blind man and a paraplegic, wanted to go sailing and realized that although they couldn’t do it alone, they could do it together. Greg, who teaches sailing to both the disabled and the able bodied, explains that going out on the water with a partner really comes down to one simple thing: trust.

Greg: Racing I’m a solo sailor. I’m a hotshot. I want to beat everybody. But on sail training I love sharing that experience with somebody else just so that I can see their faces. Especially if they’re new sailors because it’s very intimidating you know to be in water that’s over a hundred feet deep, and cold, and the wind is howling. They have to be very trusting of you and gaining their confidence and building their confidence level as to what's going on—is, you know, that’s the key to the whole equation.

Narrator: But being a little afraid, well, that's part of the fun...

Greg: You don’t want to scare them too bad, but you don’t want them to be bored either. Because on a day with no wind, sailing can be incredibly boring. I prefer lovely windy days so that they get that little bit of adrenaline rush from a little bit of fear, a little bit of excitement. And then once you got them use to that, then they’re just addicted to the feeling of the moment and what can I do to make it go faster? And then they wanna race somebody. If you got two people on the pond, there's a race, you can’t help yourself. It’s just one of those things. That’s the good stuff about sailing.

Narrator: Of course, most sailors with disabilities have a little equipment help, too. Sure, BAADS has larger boats, but they also have a small fleet of access dinghies, small sailboats that are specifically designed not to flip over. On weekends, the group runs the Access Dinghy Program, a free sailing class for underserved kids of all abilities. Greg remembers the moment that sold him on being a teacher…

Greg: There was this lovely little girl who in laymen’s terms she was a “dribbler.” She was almost completely catatonic on the shore. I volunteered to take her out for a sail. I talked to her caregiver a little bit before we started this and I said well you know, ‘Is she totally unresponsive? How will I know if she’s uncomfortable or if she’s pleased with what’s going on?’ And she said, ‘Well, she whistles when she’s happy.’ We took off away from the dock and this little girl just started whistling. Not a tune, just [whistle noise] as fast as she could. And her face became animated. I still tear up when I think about her. It was just so wonderful to have that kind of an effect on somebody.

Narrator: Whether encouraging children who can barely move to go out on a boat or certifying quadriplegics to become skippers, BAADS continually pushes the limits of what a person can do—a trait that can be found in most all its members. For some who are part of the BAADS crew, just feeling the wind against their face takes them beyond anything they’ve ever experienced. Take Cristina Rupke, for example. Cristina was born without use of her arms and legs, and is confined to a wheelchair. She uses her chin to control a joystick that moves the wheelchair, and uses a pen for everything from typing to pushing elevator buttons. Living a life full of adaptations, Cristina wasn't really worried about her first time sailing.

Cristina: So literally they just tied a rope around me and I was tethered to, like, the side railing of the boat. It was fabulous. I was kind of bouncing around, it was pretty fun. I don’t mind that sort of thing. I’m sure somebody else would’ve been slightly offended.

Narrator: Since that admittedly unusual introduction to BAADS, Cristina’s been hooked. Now she sails with a different kind of partner: a computerized chin-controlled joystick not unlike the one in her wheelchair. With the device that's kind of like something you'd see in an old school video game, Cristina can go out on the water by herself...

Cristina: So basically the joystick sits right underneath my chin, so I can just lean down, not that far and if I hit the joystick right and left I control the rudders. And if I hit the joystick up and down I bring in and out the sails. And that’s kind of how that works.

Narrator: Cristina, a lawyer, embodies BAADS' ultimate goal: independence. The idea is that anyone should be able to sail on his or her own—and have the confidence to actually try it. With BAADS, even high quadriplegics can sail alone—they steer the entire boat by blowing into a drinking straw. For Cristina, it just took a little creativity...and a natural impulse.

Cristina: I don’t really think about it too much because I use, I mean to get around every day I use a chin controlled wheelchair so when I’m sailing I guess I don’t really think about the joystick that much other than you know like obviously at first I needed to understand how it works but once I understood that I don’t really think about that so much as like, What do I need to do now? Do I need to turn that way or that way?

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Ed: It was a whole collection of things that I was faced with that, you know not being able to drive a car, not being able to read. I just love to read, I love the smell of paper, I love print. And not being able to read anymore, not being able to just jump in a car and go drive away... Well, it was gradual and so I was able to acclimate to each loss, each bit of freedom.

Narrator: That's Ed Gallagher who was diagnosed with HIV 22 years ago, and has become legally blind. He still has trouble picking out tomatoes, buying food for his dog Genoa, and sometimes gets ripped off when he gets change back at the store. But Ed's a lifelong sailor, and decided that one activity he would never give up was sailing. And he wouldn't let anyone else give it up either.

Ed: One of the guys that I sail with had gotten blown up in Vietnam and his legs are just completely mangled. And he’s been with BAADS for a number of years and I’d sailed with him for a long time. It got to the point where he couldn’t sail anymore and he’s pretty much homebound. And I could hear it in his voice how much he missed sailing. And so well I thought there must be some kind of way to push this co-ability thing a little further.

Narrator: Ed worked almost a year to find a way for his friend to navigate from his own home while Ed sailed alone on the bay. In the end, here's what they did: he connected a web camera to his helmet. This camera then connected to a laptop he strapped to himself. Using the Voice Over IP service called Skype and Wifi that stretches over the Bay, Ed could call his friend and his friend could see the Bay through his head camera. Back home, his friend used a microphone which played through Ed's headset to describe the surroundings so Ed could make decisions about where to steer the boat. And it worked.

Ed: Being out on the bay and being able to hook up with somebody that’s homebound and having them be able to join the folks that are on the boat, seeing what we’re seeing and experiencing the same environment was just a really transitional thing. People do it from desktop to desktop but to take this thing to out in the middle of the bay, I thought well it can go anyplace. I can do anything.

Narrator: And that he did. Last year, Ed used the device to communicate with a man in Poland. Together, they steered their boat to victory in two out of three races in the first BAADS-hosted National Regatta. Ed has also taken his camera out walking and biking—even skiing.

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Narrator: Now Ed is the Commodore for BAADS, that is, the main guy in charge. Innovative and fearless, Ed is a fitting leader for the association. But when he first found out about BAADS, his attitude was a little different.

Ed: Never having ever been around anyone disabled before I thought well this is just a bunch of gimpy blinky people and those are terms, kind of derogatory terms that we all laugh between ourselves now...I have never been associated with a finer bunch of people in my life.

Narrator: The fine bunch consists of roughly 140 BAADS members, about half without a disability and the other half disabled due to a variety of causes, from a woman who hit her head on a tree stump when she fell back to make a snow angel to a man who was an accidental victim of a shooting incident. No matter how someone came to have a disability, whether through birth or otherwise, or even if they don't have one, BAADS members just can't get enough of each other.

Cristina: The basic thing that I was saying is that it’s so much fun so of course you want to go hang out. It’s so funny because people come by the BAADS dinghy dock on Saturday mornings just to stop by and say hi. Like if I have to go to work I’ll stop by and say hi for a while. It’s funny because also you know at the end of sailing it’s about 3 o’clock and everyone is saying they have to go home, then 7 o’clock comes around and everyone is still around you know.

Narrator: Cristina didn't expect to be one of those people. Before she joined BAADS, Cristina was slightly skeptical of some disability-focused organizations.

Cristina: I felt that those programs put such the emphasis on the disability that it was a little bit condescending. And even if it was a great program, I just felt a little bit awkward about the whole thing. I don’t really, I mean I don’t see myself as very disabled. It’s just never stopped me from doing anything. So when I come into contact with programs that focus on disabilities I tend to be a bit skeptical and a bit hesitant to participate because of that. And so I kind of thought that BAADS would fall victim to that, and they don’t at all. They just want to go sailing.

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Narrator: Cristina and the other members have found BAADS to be a welcoming and supportive environment. This is especially important for families who have financial concerns because of the everyday expenses that disabilities can require—like caregivers, doctors and equipment. To keep the program accessible, BAADS uses fundraising and grants to keep membership costs down to about $36/year, which is virtually unheard of in the generally elite world of sailing. But what connects this community on a deeper level, besides a good deal on a great experience?

Greg: Just our love of sharing what we do with other people. That’s the one common denominator. We just love sharing what we love doing and that’s sailing.

Narrator: From the first time Greg went out on a boat and experienced the exhilaration, he realized that there was more to sailing than just the thrill.

Greg: I was just addicted. First to the sensations of the sailing and then to sharing it with anybody who’d get in a boat with me. From then on I was just a sailor. That was it. I thought of myself as a sailor first, and a wheelchair guy second.

Narrator: And for Ed, this change of perspective is not only an individual one.

Ed: When you see somebody going down in a wheelchair, walking by with their white cane that you think oh this poor, decrepit cripples and blinkies they must live such a terrible life…and little do they know, they’re out there living life even more full than the able bodied. They have a propensity to overcompensate. But I think just being out there and being public I think changes everybody’s perception and makes it easier for everybody.

Greg: It’s easy for somebody to say, ‘You can do this’. But it’s quite another thing to show people with your own disability that you can do this and that all you have to do is dream and with a little logistical help, maybe with some equipment help, anything is possible.

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Narrator: To find out more about BAADS, you can go to www.baads.org. Not in the San Francisco Bay Area but want to get involved? Check out the almost 1,000 organizations listed on Idealist.org that are doing innovative work with the disabled.

Do you think that sailing is the sport that makes disabled people feel the most able? Or do you feel differently? Share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment on the blog.

For more information on the Idealist.org podcasts, you can go to idealist.org/podcasts.

The music featured in this episode was “Wings Path Boat Ascension” by John Holowach.

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