RYA Sailability in conjunction with RO RO Sailing Trust entered Round The Island Race using Spirit of Scott Bader and finished fourth over the line in the bridge deck catamaran class. There was a mixed crew of both disabled and able bodied crew. It was a fantastic event despite the light winds. Spirit of Scott Bader is a completely accessible boat and proved very competitive overall. This was a great opportunity for RYA Sailability sailors to take part in one of the most prestigious races. There was a great feeling of accomplishment and all the team on board help took part in fundraising to support disabled sailing.

The RYA Sailability National Conference 2008 was held on Saturday 1^st November at Rutland Sailing Club. The purpose of the conference is to inform and educate delegates about the achievements during the year of both RYA Sailability and its parent, the Royal Yachting Association.

Demonstrating Sailability's integration with sailing’s National Body, the Conference was opened by the RYA Chairman Richard Langford, who welcomed nearly 100 delegates representing 32 disabled sailing groups and praised their efforts to promote disabled sailing, pledging to continue support from the RYA for what is an increasingly important part of our sport.

The meeting continued with an operational update by Sailability Manager Debbie Blachford, who outlined all the new initiatives that have been started since the last conference.

There is new publicity material, including a DVD and Sailability TV, which will be starting in March 2009. Many new partnerships have been forged with disabled organisations, such as RNIB and the “Sailing On” project that is spread over 13 sites and has special tactile achievement cards for blind sailors. There are other new schemes in development, like the Deafwave project and the Volunteer Recognition scheme, with Andy Fell’s Awareness Training and the new Sailability Award Certificates to support them. Dedicated children’s’ projects are finding lots of new young sailors and there is at last a full complement of Regional Organisers plus four new Trustees, to support the Operational Plan.

Trustee Robyn Griffith Jones highlighted some notable fund raising events, including a £90,000 anonymous gift, Duran Duran lead singer Simon LeBon attracting media attention at the Sailability Sunsail regatta and Geoff Holt helping to raise £25,000 at the Skandia ball. Sailability is the Charity of this year’s Earls Court Boat Show, who have made an ‘opt-in’ 50p donation of every ticket sold.  There will also be a Sailability stand at the show, raffling a Bug that Laser have donated. To make donating even easier, it will soon be possible to give online through the new website www.ryasailability.org.uk
Sailability Trust presentation.

From the RYA, John Thorne, the National Sailing Coach gave an update on the National sailing Scheme and Gillian Wright, Windsurfing Development Officer, reminded us that disability doesn’t always mean lack of mobility and disabled people do want a choice. There is windsurfing equipment adapted to suit peoples’ disabilities and the Team 15 scheme can be tailored for use by disabled groups. Gareth Brooks explained the function of the RYA Regional Development Officers, which is to set up training schemes and centres, run the Onboard scheme and help clubs with development. To find out more, the details of all these schemes are available on the RYA website.

George Barker, the Sailability Race Development Coach, outlined his role and introduced a new booklet called“Beginner to Winner” which describes the pathway from starting to sail right up to racing in the Paralympics.

Mike Gallon, a Rotarian who organises the Rotary-Sailability Collaboration Project, gave a detailed outline of what Rotary is and how they can supply management & expertise to groups, as well as fund raising. Rotary gave vital help to Geoff Holt during his Personal Everest circumnavigation and Rotarians from the Peterborough & Waveney groups described to the conference their experiences of starting and managing disabled sailing groups.

Finally, John Harris-Burland of Mindworks Marketing told us what to think about if you want to effectively market your group or club. The advice about doing all the research and identifying exactly what your product and market is before any promotion or selling begins is priceless.

Delegates then split into forum groups chaired by their Regional Organiser and this was followed by a final question & answer session with the panel.

In the evening an excellent dinner was provided by Rutland Sailing Club and, between courses, the RYA Sailability Volunteer awards were given to those present who had made Significant, Outstanding or Exceptional Contributions for service to disabled sailing. Each volunteer nominated in the categories were presented with a recognition certificate and gift.  The award winners for each category were, Rory Morrison – Exceptional Contribution, Rosy Meadow - Outstanding Contribution, Carol Bloyce - Significant Contribution

This was followed by a (free) raffle courtesy of Sailability.

On Sunday the Try-a-Boat session was less well attended than the dinner due to the miserable weather but most people agreed that it was a valuable chance to compare the different models on display.