Blind Polish sailors 'see the sea'

There's plenty of room for adventure in life aboard specially equipped yachts

Walentyna Koziol was born with impaired vision.

Now, fast-forward half a century. She is sailing a yacht through the mist on a lake in eastern Poland, without a care in the world.

"I can't see the sails, but so what!" she said as she gripped the rudder, occasionally joining the sea ditties being sung by fellow crew members.

"I feel the wind in my ears, on my forehead, on my face," she said, explaining how she gets her sense of direction. "If my right cheek is cold and the wind is blowing hard, I know that it's coming from starboard."

Koziol is gliding through a sailing course on Siemianowka Lake near the Belarusian border, in an event organized by Polish foundation Imago Maris, with the visually impaired in mind.

She and 12 fellow students start with a course on the ins and outs of yachting - including how to tie essential sailing knots - and go over basic safety rules.

Self-confidence

Then comes the fun part: leaving dry land behind and putting the newfound knowledge to work.

The yacht is specially equipped with maps in Braille, a GPS with speech software and a rudder that announces the vessel's direction and speed.

For safety, blind crew membersbers always sail alongside sighted companions.

"Experience shows that the right ratio of the sighted and the sightless is one to one," said Ewa Skrzecz, head of Imago Maris.

Piotr Sokolski, a young store clerk from the eastern city of Bialystok, who is nearly blind, said, "It's my first time out on the water on a sailboat.

"I had no idea sailboats tilt so much. At the first turn, I thought the boat was going to capsize. But then I found out that's normal," he said, clutching the jib sheet. "I also didn't realize that the water was so close when we were sitting on one side of the boat, and that we could touch it."

Skrzecz believes sailing can greatly help the blind and visually impaired to build self-confidence.

"Faced with the unknown, these people react no differently to anyone else. Some are anxious, others are open and up for something new. There are those who lost their sight and are now afraid to leave the house.

"We try to encourage them and tell them that life isn't over, that it's possible to keep doing interesting things."

World championship

Sailing associations for the blind have sprung up around the globe in recent years. A world championship involving 16 international teams was staged this month on Lake Michigan in the United States.

But Poland considers itself a pioneer in the field, which has been practiced for years on the Baltic Sea through a project called Zobaczyc morze, or "See the Sea".

Similar courses are run in the lake-rich Masuria region in northern Poland.

"We want to pass on that tradition and our know-how to other countries," said Skrzecz, who is writing her doctoral thesis on sightless sailing.

Imago Maris will stage its first cross-cultural sailing trip on the Mediterranean next month.

Visually impaired men and women from Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have signed on to sail from the Spanish port of Alicante to Barcelona - via Majorca and Ibiza - on a Polish schooner, the Kapitan Borchardt.

The itinerary may be the stuff cruises are made of, but Skrzecz promised that all those aboard will get their hands dirty.

"The disabled are always an integral part of the crew. That's the underlying principle. They can't be thought of as mere passengers," Skrzecz said.

"They pull the lines, do the cooking, take over the watch when it's their turn and do every kind of chore - around the clock."