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In a few short weeks, Chris Neophytou from Paphos will be strapped to a wheelchair and hauled nearly 30 metres aloft through a tangle of lines, sails, masts and spars aboard a square rigged three-masted tall ship. |
High in the ship’s rigging, Neophytou and his mates will unfurl the sails. As the deck pitches beneath them, he will be just another member of the crew. His handicap will accord him no quarter.
“I’m a bit scared,” Neophytou admitted this week, as he prepared for his September 17 – 23 cruise. It will, after all, be his first time aboard anything larger than a glass - bottomed, coral reef tourist boat.
“But it’s not going to stop me,” he told The Sunday Mail. “From what I gather, I’ll be
doing everything” aboard the ship. And he will, according to Captain Morin Scott MBE of Paphos, chairman of the Jubilee Sailing Trust (Cyprus).
The hereditary Freidrich’s ataxia that sentenced Neophytou to a wheelchair has not stolen his spirit. He drives a car, designs Internet websites for a living and co-owns Paraquip, a Paphos store selling equipment for the handicapped.
After watching Scott’s video of life aboard the Lord Nelson, Neophytou wanted to go to sea last autumn. He opted out because his
wife was pregnant. Now that his daughter is safely launched, he is ready to set sail – and he says this has nothing to do with any 3am feedings.
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As Britain’s Prince Andrew recalled in Scott’s video, the STS Lord Nelson was “named after Britain’s most famous disabled sailor”. Nelson’s loss of one arm and one eye in battle did not |
Not only is Prince Andrew a patron of the Jubilee Sailing Trust, so is his mother, Queen Elizabeth ll. In fact, the ship’s and the trust’s very existence owe in no small part to a 1978 grant from the Queen’s Jubilee Trust.
Since her launch in 1986, the STS (Sail Training Ship) Lord Nelson has carried more than 12,000 people across 220.000 nautical miles at sea. Over 5,356 of them were physically disabled crewmembers and 2,187 of them were in wheelchairs.
LIFTS
At a cost of £2.5
million Sterling in 1986, (she is worth twice that now), the steel-hulled
barque is 43 metres long and 9m wide. Her aluminium masts soar over 33m,
and her 18 sails on aluminium spars offer 1,024 square metred of canvas
to the wind.
Electric lifts throughout
mean the ship is wheelchair accessible. Sink basins in lavatories can be
raised and lowered to accommodate wheelchairs. Their taps require almost
no pressure to turn, and showers allow the disabled to wash while sitting.
So that the blind can
safely steer the ship, a ‘speaking compass’ at the helm beeps when someone
deviates from the desired heading. “Silence means you’re bang on course,”
said one crew member.
Marios Vrionides, another Cypriot to sail with the Lord Nelson being hauled aloft his wheelchair (top left)
So that the blind can also safely
navigate the deck, raised metal arrows on railings point their sharp ends
toward the ship’s bow. Top and bottom steps on all ladders are also rough-textured,
so the blind will know when they have reached the last step.
There is even a bar
on board that serves wine and beer at duty-free prices. It is, in the words
of one able-bodied crew-woman, “as jolly as any pub on shore”. And probably
safer, too.
There are more accidents aboard
for able-bodied people than for disabled.” His conclusion: “It’s more dangerous
to be able-bodied and it’s more dangerous to stay ashore.”
For Frank Letch, the
safety factor is important. He has no arms. Where his arms should be, he
has only the stumps he was born with, and they barely show when he’s wearing
a T-shirt.
Standing beside ‘normal crew
members, he is not at all shy about his handicap. He does what he can.
When it’s time to raise sails, he squeezes a length of line in his armpit
between his stumps and his chest and swivels his body to tug on the line.