Sailing Stalled In Sheboygan

Championships that were planned at Sheboygan had to be curtailed on September 22nd as there was a lack of wind on the first two days.


That led to competitions being stalled. This happened on the first of the two days when championship sailing events were planned. However, this might have come as a blessing in disguise as the sailors who were waiting for the competitions to take part found more interesting things to do. There were about two groups of top level sailors who were at Shebogyan for the week as there were two kinds of championships scheduled to take place at Shebogyan at the same time. One group was the World Racing Championship for women sailors while the other consisted of visually impaired sailors taking part in the Blind Match Race. Both the team got to learn much about each other. The women’s team realized that the blind sailors had a unique way of sailing that was neat.

As there was unsettling wind and fog it prevented the races from being on the waters as per schedule. However, the female competitors learnt several techniques on how to steer the sail even without sight.

Many of the female competitors realized that they depend a lot on what they actually see and that takes away a lot of capabilities like understanding sounds and vibrations and using them to guide themselves. The blind sailing match had buoys set up in triangle patterns. Each buoy emitted a different sound. That allowed the visually impaired sailors to be able to gauge where they were on their course. There is a different signal sent out among competing boats to signal their positions of the opposing teams. These were some of the exciting details of blind sailing matches that the women’s team got to learn about.