History of the Foundation
The Foundation owed its origins to the campaign to raise funds to buy the 2 sonars needed for the 1996 Paralympic campaign. This fund raising campaign was very successful with help from many of the Solent Yacht Clubs and contributions from old friends including Richard Bonham Christie, David Sheriff and Rosemary Whittaker-Alan, who organised a massive fund raising party.
Over the past few years, the Foundation has focussed on its main aim of providing boats, equipment and financial help to sailors with disabilities who wished to race and train. It has also helped to organise racing events, including the European Disabled Championships, which bring people to compete against each other.
A great deal of its success has been due to the hard work of its first Trustees; Richard Bonham-Christie, Nick Bonham and John Ferree who were unstinting in their freely given time and fund raising efforts.
The Foundation maintains its own two Sonars, which are used by individuals or groups of sailors to train. This summer 'Dolphin' has been sailed on a number of weekends by the British B2 blind team to train for the World Blind Championship held in the States (Lucy's story).
'Dolphin' is also frequently used by George Barker, the RYA Sailability coach, who brings groups of sailors down to Cowes (George's story and Kirsten's story) Often the discovery that it is still possible to sail competitively can make an enormous difference to someone who is struggling with a newly acquired disability. (Martin and Seb's stories) This summer 'Dolphin' was lent for Cowes Week to Kerry, a very severely disabled American woman. (See Gene's story)
For a number of years the Foundation lent a Sonar to Sussex Yacht Club for a demonstration event for their Sailability group. The boat proved very popular and this year Sussex Yacht Club purchased 'Josh' from the Foundation and a team of deaf sailors brought the 'Josh' back to Cowes Week to compete this summer. (Sussex story)
The Foundation is also interested in supporting the development of equipment and fittings that help disabled sailors to compete on equal terms. The foundation works very closely with the British Paralympic movement and RYA Sailability.
To help to publicise the work of Sailability, Andy had the loan of Peter Harrison's 50-foot Chernikeeff for the Admiral's Cup. Andy put together a team of 14 people that mixed America's Cup crew and disabled sailors. For the first time ever in the Admiral's Cup, 5 of the 14 crew were disabled. This included one blind guy who could pack a spinnaker in 3 ½ minutes and never got it wrong. On the way back from the Wolfe Rock the boat reached 23 ½ knots and averaged 15/16 knots. (Paul's story)
The Foundation is presently looking to provide some support for Geoff Holt, a key figure in the development of Sailability within the RYA, in his bid to sail round Britain (Geoff's story)
In 2005 Andy again helmed Chernikeeff in the Round the Island Race to raise funds for the British Paralympic movement.
The most satisfying aspect of the Foundation's work has been the fact that so many of the sailors who either began, or returned, to racing with the Foundation have gone on to become very competent sailors competing on equal terms with able bodied sailors within top racing fleets (Brian & Andrew's stories)
As more people benefit from the Andrew Cassell Foundation their stories will be added to this page, please read about the huge personal achievements that have been made already and come back to read more stories in the future.
