Tag Archives: disability

Making Your Vessel Accessible for the Disabled

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Making Your Vessel Accessible for the Disabled
By Urban Miyares, Co-Founder, Challenged America Program

“Urban – My wife now has MS and uses a wheelchair. How can I make our 30 foot sailboat more wheelchair friendly so she can continue to be active as crew and enjoy being on the water? Jim L.”

Over the years we’ve received many such requests, from both sail and power boat owners wanting to make their vessels more accessible and accommodating for themselves and others with disabilities. As a matter of fact, just in the past couple of weeks I’ve had 3 such requests – which prompted me to write this blog.


If you have a physical, mobility or sensory challenge (whether permanent or temporary) or diagnosed with a hidden medical condition, you’ll immediately discover how unfriendly most boats are. Their design is not accommodating to the disabled. However you can make your sail or power boat more welcoming and comfortable to crew members and passengers with impairments.
Following is but a beginning outline to help guide you in making your vessel more accessible to those with physical challenges. Continue reading →

The Raw Beauty Project Empowers Disabled Women

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When she was 19, Wendy Crawford’s life as a model changed forever, after a car accident left her a quadriplegic. Thirty years later, she’s not only posing in front of the camera, but empowering other women with disabilities to discover their own Raw Beauty.

The co-creator of The Raw Beauty Project NYC told TODAY.com that after her accident — she was hit by a drunk driver — she initially remained optimistic that she could have a future in modeling with a disability, but was disappointed that the industry wasn’t as receptive to the idea.

Walter Chin
Wendy Crawford is one of the people behind The Raw Beauty Project NYC, a photo exhibition designed to empower women with disabilities.

Crawford, now 49, went on to found the mobileWOMEN advocacy group for women in wheelchairs in 2002, and in 2006 she helped created “Uncensored Life: Raw Beauty,” a Miami exhibit featuring photos of 20 disabled women that aimed to create new perceptions, shatter stereotypes and raise awareness for women with physical challenges.

“[Models] become empowered by it, and realize there are so many other things they can do,” Crawford said.

This year, mobileWOMEN.org partnered with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation to develop The Raw Beauty Project, a spinoff that features 20 women with disabilities to emphasize their “beauty, empowerment and sensuality,” according to the project’s website. Showcased last month at ACA Galleries in Manhattan, photographs from the series have been sold to benefit the Reeve Foundation, which raises money and awareness for people living with spinal cord injuries and paralysis.

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Steve Muse, Victory of Spirit

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An inspiring story, I have know Steve Muse for a few years now, I met him and Jennifer as a volunteer and photographer at Challenged America, I did not know the whole story until now, just bits and pieces.

When I was in the hospital a year and a half ago with the real possibility of losing my leg, Steve Muse and other Challenged America participants, Wounded Warriors were the inspiration that helped me keep positive during my stay, through my surgeries and year long recovery.

Steve loaned me one of his wheelchairs, set it up for me and gave me a form of mobility I did not have and I gained a whole new level of admiration for what he had and was achieving and gave me the strength to push my rehabilitation through the pain, through the ups and down.

Watch his story and if you are not inspired, nothing will.

Thanks Steve for everything, you will never know how big a part you played in my recovery, you are an inspiration..

Philippe Gadeyne

Steve Muse, Victory of Spirit

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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