Facing their fears
Disabled people are working to form the Kingdom’s first Paralympic sailing team
Belgian-born Peter Jacops is a man on a mission: his desire is to see Thailand have its own Paralympic sailing team one day. Two years ago the veteran yacht surveyor, who has lived in Thailand for three years and worked off and on since 1999, got the idea for this after seeing a news report that sailing was being taken out of the Paralympics because of the lack of participating countries.
To address the matter, he decided to set up the first Disabled Sailing Thailand Club.
A sailing enthusiast, he shared how it all began, saying: “As I closely follow sailing events at the Paralympics, I was very upset when I heard that they were scrapping it because they weren’t enough participants. I wanted to lend a hand so I tried to search for agencies responsible for sailing for the disabled in Thailand. I hit a dead end because nothing seemed to be available. I found it rather ironic that being a mecca for sailing in Southeast Asia, Thailand didn’t have a team for the disabled.”
Not one to give up easily, he got the ball rolling by registering the Disabled Sailing Thailand Club, with a mission to build Thailand’s first Paralympic Sailing team for global and regional competitions.
The goal was to get as many physically challenged people to get involved in sailing so they could select and train to compete at international events, he said.
One of the first activities involved taking 85 disabled students from the Father Ray Foundation for an excursion on five sailing charter yachts in order to gauge their interest in sailing. Needless to say, the activity was a smashing success, he said. After the selection period, they had 35 potential candidates.
The next challenge was purchasing the boats, Jacops said, which are not available on the second-hand market because they are customised and expensive, each costing around 880,000 baht.
After making a proposal to boat designers whom he knew through work, which stipulated that the boats be built for disabled sailors, he received favourable replies from the Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand and the US. He has also managed to have a boat built in Thailand, costing about 110,000 baht.
Jacops said five boats are expected to come to Thailand this year, the first of which is a SV14 that will be completed this month. Fully funded by the Royal Phuket Marina, it was displayed at the Ocean Marina Pattaya Boat Show last year. Furthermore, Simpson Marine have committed to sponsoring the second SV14 in Thailand.
One team member, quadriplegic Neena Doowa, was the first person to show keen
interest in sailing after reading about the excursion with students from the Father Ray Foundation.
Jacops said it was her dream to sail, but because she can only move her head, she felt it would be impossible to accomplish this feat. A car accident left Doowa disabled. Prior to the accident, she was an athletic, gregarious person with an active social life and the incident left her despondent, she said.
As the programme was in its infancy when she was brought on board, Jacops got her to help him with raising funds and encouraged her to learn sailing. She went through a six-week sailing course.
While Doowa breezed through the theory, the practical made her anxious.
“[Last Oct 2] I went sailing for the first time and it was amazing,” Doowa recalled. “I was not actually manoeuvring the boat myself, but the feeling was great. However, leading up to this I had mixed feelings. Since I had my accident six years ago, I have become paranoid. An unexpected jerk, makes me scream. I made sure that my wheelchair was fastened securely and knew that when I was out in the water, the waves would hit me and it would be jerky. I reassured myself with the fact that my sister and three more people were on the boat with me. When I saw the view, it was great. I felt super comfortable and it wasn’t jerky. The sun was strong and I love the sun. The one thought that raced through my mind was how the experience would be once I am in control of the boat myself. The next challenge is for me to manoeuvre the boat. That would be a different thought process.”
Doowa is being groomed to coach a sailing team, one day.
“While I don’t want to look too far into the future, it would be great to see myself teach sailing to people with disabilities. Sailing is not just therapeutic, it also empowers. I realise that there are numerous challenges awaiting me. A lot of people don’t know about disabled sailing. They don’t know how it is possible for people with disabilities to sail. People have all these questions on how it is possible. We are slowly educating the public that it is possible. Peter said we are catering to the highest disability. I probably fit the bill,” she said, adding that her ultimate dream would be to participate at the Paralympics.
“I would like to encourage people with disabilities to not sell themselves short. There are an increasing number of sports for the disabled today, all we need is to be courageous enough to face our fears. Playing sports is a great way to beat stress and depression.”
There are an increasing number of sports for the disabled today, all we need is to be courageous enough to face our fears