A chance to set sail

By Tom Layman

This will be the last sailing day of the season for Charlie Croteau.

On a cold, blustery October morning, which was forecasted to be a sunny, beautiful day, Croteau has learned to deal with whatever challenges have come in his way.

"We can't always get what we want," he said in a half-joking, half-disappointed tone.

Croteau has been overcoming obstacles for most of his adult life.  When he was 20 years old, the Worcester native was struck with a life-changing circumstance.

While attending Montana State University, he broke his neck in a gymnastics course.  As a result he was paralyzed from the waist down and had little strength in his hands.

"I did a bad somersault in a routine and the coach wanted me to get back on and do it again," he said.  "I was thinking about getting this stupid jump out the way and I just made a mistake."

Before the accident, Croteau considered himself a highly active person.  He participated in track, tennis and any activity that allowed him to be outdoors, being a fishing and wildlife major.

Since his accident, Croteau hasn't really stopped doing the things he loves. 

"You have to stay active and keep busy," he said, "because if you sit around all day that's when you get depressed and think about your injuries."

He has participated in competitive wheelchair races, hang gliding and even had a chance to dogfight in planes, which he said was very expensive and took a serious toll on his body.

But Croteau always wanted to get back on the water.  He considers himself a "Caribbean Amphibian" and living in Worcester didn't help him get any closer to the ocean. 

He began traveling to Boston to go kayaking, but this past year he fell in love with his new sport: sailing.

 Piers Park Sailing Center

For the past 30 years, Croteau has been teaching and working with people who are learning

to adjust to life in a wheelchair.  Last year, while teaching a class at Mass General, he came in contact with Maureen McKinnon-Tucker and she had a plan to get Croteau in a sailboat.

McKinnon-Tucker is in charge of the adaptive sailing program at Piers Park Sailing Center in East Boston, and she has quite the resume. 

She has been competing in sailing events all over the world, and at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics she and her partner Nick Scandone brought home a gold medal in the SKUD 18 class competition.

She began the adaptive program at Piers Park in 2007, because she wanted to give disabled people the opportunity to get in the water, and she knew Piers Park dock had all the capabilities of doing just that.

"I kind of showed up like a starry-eyed kind of person saying 'Yes we can,'" she said.  "I wanted this program to be empowering. 

"I didn't want it to be offering people a chance to just be a passenger on a boat.  That was the mission I arrived here with."

While there were some early bumps and bruises of getting people to Piers Park, McKinnon-Tucker said that the program has really taken off.

"We blow minds on a regular basis, if not we blow minds on a daily or hourly basis," she said.  "People have just no idea what people with disabilities can do."

    

Piers Park has equipped a number of 23-foot Sonar boats, which are used in competitive sailing races and in the Paralympics, with adaptive equipment that allow a person in a wheelchair a chance to navigate the vessel.

Because there is no motor, it takes a lot more effort to get the sailboat moving in the right direction. 

So McKinnon-Tucker employed a Companion Sailor program, in which able-bodied people assist those with limitations in setting the sails and doing all the hands-on work to keep the boat on course.

"The Companion Sailors will trim the main sheet, trim the jib," she explained.  "If you got a vocal issue they will do your radio checks or just be your memory for you if you don't remember where the dock is."

These Companion Sailors could be high school students, college students or anyone who has enough sailing experience to assist the "skippers" of the ship.  Companion Sailors can volunteer their time, and a few full-time companions are paid during the summer months to help deal with the high volume of sailors coming to the docks.

The childrens' program during the summer is funded by outside sources, but for those like Croteau who want to get a chance to learn a new sport, they can pay a $500 fee for the year and take enough training courses where they are good enough to go out on the boats.

"It's the best deal around, really," said Croteau.  "I mean, you look at the price of a mooring in Boston Harbor and you look at this and it makes the most sense."

Like others who have joined the program, Croteau became hooked, and over the summer he said he sailed two to three times a week.

On the water

On this late season day, Croteau is teamed up with his Companion Sailor, Igor Sokolik.

Sokolik, a native of Russia, has been sailing for close to seven years, and usually does it for recreation or a chance to spend time with his grandchildren.

But Sokolik understands that helping disabled people get on the water is a very important thing to do.

"I like volunteering, I love it," he said.  "You feel like you are doing something important, and whenever I have time I'll come down to help."

This is the first time Sokolik and Croteau had been sailing together, but the two worked well together, keeping the boat sailing in a nice smooth direction.

They even picked up enough speed to challenge a bigger, faster boat, something that brought a big smile to Croteau's face, the self-proclaimed "thrill-seeker."

For Croteau, sailing isn't about proving that he can physically be able to steer a boat, but mentally be prepared enough to keep it on course, and maybe win a few races here and there.

"It's kind of fun to see if I'm smart enough to understand what the wind is doing on the sails getting everything going and trying to land a boat into the dock without crashing," he said.  "It's a little challenge to pull it all off."

While he has no plans of taking his sailing and racing life to the next level, Croteau knows he will take on this challenge with everything he's got, just like all of those challenges before.

He added: "I look at this big blue marble as just another toy to play with."

 

To here more from Croteau, watch this short video: