Category Archives: Disabled Sailor Profile

Ryan Porteous: Sailing through life’s challenges

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If there’s anyone that knows what it feels like when life throws you a curveball, it’s American Ryan Porteous. He is also familiar with how it feels to bounce back. Though he suffers from a spinal-cord injury, the San Diego resident recently qualified for the U.S. Sailing Team with dreams of becoming a Paralympic athlete.Ryan Porteous sailing-ireland

Porteous graduated from High School in 2011, second in his class and designated Male Athlete of the Year. It was just weeks into his freshman year at UC Santa Barbara, where he had planned to pursue a degree in physics, that the unthinkable happened. Porteous slipped on a dock, hitting his head on the edge of it and breaking his neck. At 18, he found himself partially paralyzed from the neck down.

Rehabilitation efforts have restored some of Porteous’ movement. He can walk short distances with a walker and has nearly full use of his upper body. Still, for a former outside linebacker/strong safety whose high school football team won their division championships in 2009 – not to mention his time spent on his school’s swim, basketball and surf teams – the incident was nothing short of life changing. Continue reading →

Steve Muse: Born with a Hammer in his Hand

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Steve Muse_1421703023_n“I would like to say that the journey in one’s life is what you make of it. Being knocked down a few notches has humbled me. It has brought me closer to the people I love. For what reason I can’t always say, because I can be a right bastard sometimes, I am loved. When the chips are down you find out who your friends are. My wife and I are tighter than we have ever been and I’m still Daddy to my kids. I’m grateful for my family and my friends. Without them you are nothing!”

Steve Muse was born in San Diego, California into a family of builders. His grandfather built his own house and a small fiberglass fishing boat among other things. His uncle Dan was a General Contractor and, at an early age, Steve spent summers working for him and learned the trades of carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, roofing, masonry, drywall, etc. They did it all! While growing up, Steve thought, everybody does that stuff. His grandfather Jesse, father Phil and Uncle Jim worked at Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical where they worked in aerospace manufacturing and development. All retired from the company which no longer exists.

Growing up in the east county, Steve attended Riverview Elementary in Lakeside. Later he matriculated to El Capitan High School, also in Lakeside. Initially, Steve attended college, but overwhelmed with his work load, soon dropped out to follow other pursuits. Continue reading →

Blind Veteran Helps Others Learn to Sail (CNN Human Factor)

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Blind veteran helps others learn to sail

The sea is a demanding environment, so people always ask, “How are you able to sail if you can’t see?”

The answer: I have an acute “spacial” awareness and directional ability, and I use the wind’s varying pressure and patterns of waves to determine the direction I’m headed.

The truth of the matter is at night on the sea, everyone is blind. When the darkness takes over, it can be the most frightening or peaceful of times. A time when you can be at one with the ocean and your vessel, whether a totally blind sailor like me or blessed with 20/20 vision.

When I became completely blind in 1984, I first thought sailing would no longer be possible. Then I was introduced to a program called “Challenged America,” which is designed to teach people with disabilities of all kinds how to sail. I realized it was something I had to be a part of, and I welcomed one of my truest passions back into my life.

Having logged thousands of coastal and offshore sailing miles in my youth, I’ve been able to add to my experience by sailing and racing on the West Coast with “Challenged America.” This includes being the captain on two trans-Pacific races from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

Ultimately, my blindness isn’t my biggest challenge when I take to the open sea — it’s my type 1 diabetes. Many people don’t realize the daily, if not hourly requirements that people with diabetes face. But it’s a disease that when properly managed can be nothing more than something you live with, rather than something that determines how you live.

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Healing Powers of Sailing

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The healing power of sailing

One of the greatest joys of sailing is its healing power, its ability to nourish the body and soul. There’s something so soothing about a salty breeze caressing your face and the quietness of the water around you…the feel of control when you’re easing out or trimming the sails…and the way the tiller feels in your hands. Gliding through silky glass waterways, time is not measured by crazy schedules and pressing deadlines, but instead by the rise and fall of each passing crest. You are living in the here and now and enjoying life to the fullest. All feels right with the world.

This may be a routine experience to most sailors, but for some (the wheelchair bound and the terminally ill, for example), the chance to enjoy these simple sailing pleasures are nothing short of life changing.

Leave Your Disabilities at the Door

“I thought sailing was part of my past, something I could no longer do as a result of muscular dystrophy. This program has enabled me to sail again and experience feelings I hadn’t felt for a very long time—feelings like empowerment and freedom. I have learned that you can be blind and still sail as Urban, the founder of the program does, or have a prosthetic leg as Kevin, my sailing companion does. I learned that I could leave my disabilities at the dock, sail in a seven-boat regatta and win!”
-Colin Smith

In 1978, two disabled veterans in wheelchairs were at San Diego’s Mission Bay watching others sail and said, “That looks like fun…and all of them are sitting, too. Now that’s something we should be able to do.” Unable to find a sailing program or school able to accommodate their needs and desires to sail a boat themselves, they purchased a Cal 20 sailboat and invited others, with and without disabilities, to learn how to sail with them.

Thus, Challenged America was born with the goal of introducing adaptive sailing as a new life experience to improve health, build self-confidence, develop new skills and abilities and stimulate independence.

Fast forward to 2012, and Challenged America’s fleet has grown to over a dozen boats (the number varies from month to month, depending on donations and sales of program boats). Today, Challenged America also includes racing and not only attracts the disabled and their loved ones, but also professionals in sports therapy and recreational rehabilitation, sailing instructors, yacht designers, educators, researchers, innovators, engineers and adaptive technology developers from around the world. Best of all, thousands with disabilities, both physical and psychological, have enjoyed a true, often first-time sailing experience with the program.

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