One Crew Earns Its Handicap Honours

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday December 31, 1998

ANDREW DARBY

When some of his crewmates complained in the storm that it was getting a bit dark, Paul Borg replied: "It's always dark out there."

"It doesn't worry me," the blind winch grinder from Mooloolaba said. "I'll challenge anyone to a game of golf at midnight."

Borg's humour in the storm was about proving the disabled crew on Aspect Computing was not to be held back.

Watch captain Kim Jaggar, an arm amputee, said: "People have to be able to laugh at themselves to realise their own weaknesses. That's a trait of disabled people. It helps them come to terms with their incapacities."

Of the 13 crew on Aspect, run by the Sailors with Disabilities program, six had disabilities, ranging from dyslexia through post-stroke to blindness. The youngest was dyslexic Travis Foley, 12, of Mudgee.

He came to the yacht through the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia's youth training program. Unfazed by the storm's severity, he wanted to do the race again.

The yacht's owner and skipper, Mr David Pescud, said his crew were a tough lot. "They've got a point to prove. It's about people saying what they can do. We don't want to be marginalised."

Neither were they in the race. Not only did the 16.6-metre sloop survive the storm, it pounded down the Tasmanian coast to be ninth across the line.

© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home