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The Missing Ingredient
by Zoltan Pegan

Almost two years to the day since we brought 3x Access 303 Dinghies to Hungary to form the foundation for Sailability Hungary, we've finally got a good supply of the one thing we were missing from a successful disabled sailing program: sailors!

It was my father's idea, after speaking with the coach of the painfully underfunded Polish Sonar team in Medemblik, Netherlands (site of the 2002 Disabled Worlds), to purchase 3 Access Dinghies and bring Sailability to Hungary. We contacted the Hungarian Ministry for Youth and Sport, the Hungarian Disabled Sports Federation, the newspapers and TV, to spread the word ahead of our arrival.

Our first demo in June of 2003 was well attended by the media and officials, but there were not many potential sailors in the audience. It was a gloriously sunny day. Unfortunately there was hardly any breeze and Lake Velence was shallow due to several years of below average precipitation so when we ran aground on a mud bank just 50 metres from shore, the whole show turned into a flop. Neither the Assisant-Minister for Sport, nor the President of the Disabled Sports Federation wanted to come sailing with me. The local sailing coach was keen to get at least one of the Access 303s for his sailing program, and insisted that the shallow lake depth was no problem, as they would sail with the centerboard partially raised. I told him that there was no way in the world we would leave him one of these boats unless he assured me that he would never let anyone sail with the centerboard anything other than fully down.

The newspaper and TV reports after our demo were positive, but they neglected to include any contact information. Surprisingly, people recognized me from the program: a tow truck driver, a cashier in the supermarket. But not one person contacted us, even through the DSF or the Ministry for Sport. Later, through personal contacts, we were asked to bring the boats to a summer camp for disabled youth and a rehab camp for adult wheelies. Everyone seemed to enjoy sailing with us but, once again, no one expressed an interest in becoming a regular sailor. I went to a meeting of the Hungarian Paralympic Committee to drum up some recruits. Nothing.

Meanwhile my friends at Pallás Watersports, who have been storing the boats since they first arrived, have not given up. They pressed on with establishing Sailability Hungary. Péter Böröcz used the Sailability NSW Rules of Incorporation and local regulations to produce our founding documents. Once these were official we joined the Hungarian Sailing Federation and IFDS. Ernö Papp, already a skilled boat builder, spent 10 weeks working with Chris in Melbourne. Ernö and I drove to France to bring Chris' mobile unit of 4 Access Dinghies to Lake Balaton. We now had 7 boats at our disposal. Eva Pallás negotiated with the owners of a brand new marina being built on Lake Balaton at Balatonfüzfö. They included a disabled washroom in their building plans and gave us two berths to use as our own. We need to get a pontoon built to suit the two berths, and we don't have a rescue boat yet, but we now have a home. What we lack are sailors.

We featured in a number of articles in the national disabled newsletter. I see the doctor in charge of a major rehab hospital in Budapest once a month and we always talk about sailing, but he never sends any of his patients to us. We've had a display stand at the last two Budapest Boat Shows (which aren't as big as the Sydney Boat Show, but they get many thousands of people through there every year). Few disabled people attended the boat show. Most of the able-bodied people who stopped to ask about the boats asked not about how they could get involved but how much the boats cost.

I have to point out that Hungary is a poor country, and sailing has a world-wide reputation as an expensive and elite sport. Also, Budapest is 100 km from Lake Balaton, so it's not as easy for the average person to get to the water's edge as it is in Sydney or elsewhere. I was out of ideas and running out of steam. We've provided the boats and the club, and we're offering free sailing, but no one comes. What more could we do? Maybe it just won't work here.

Then things started to look up this spring. An old family friend is a host on a morning TV show. She invited me to come on the show to talk about how life in Hungary compares to living overseas for someone in a wheelchair. She introduced me to the viewers, explained that I had been a pilot and a skydiver before my accident and asked if I still skydive. I replied that I sail instead and since we were only going to get 4 minutes air-time I spoke very briefly about forming Saliability Hungary while they flashed a half dozen photos on the screen. We never got to the topic of the day, but by the time I left the studio they were fielding calls from people who wanted to know where they can come sailing. One of these callers was a para who used to sail on 30-footers before a motorcycle accident 6 years ago and hasn't been sailing since. He wanted to know if there were racing possibilities and I told him all about 2.4s, Sonars, the Liberty Worlds. I promised to call him as soon as we had a sailing day organized. Another inquiry came from the national disabled persons association, whose younger members would like to try sailing after seeing those brief 4 minutes on TV. Finally some signs of life!

In early May we were invited to bring a display to the 2005 Rehab Expo, a 3 day event. There were perhaps 20 companies displaying equipment and offering services for the disabled and about a half dozen organizations offering crafts made by the disabled. And one bright yellow Access 303 with sails fluttering. We were located by the side of the stage where everyone could see us. Friday was mostly attended by people in the medical profession, and those attending the meetings. Saturday morning there were speaches from the politicians, followed by an all-afternoon concert of music, wheelchair dancing, folk dancing. Somewhere between 4-5000 people were there on Saturday, the poor people who you don't see in the shopping malls or at paid concerts. Sunday was fairly quiet, mostly people playing table tennis, sitting volleyball, basketball and boccia.

I met a few disabled folk who were keen to try sailing, found a couple of AB sailors who offered their help on shore and on the water, and a wheelchair clothing maker who wanted to do a photo shoot using the boats. We put this all together and planned a sailing day on June 12, where I hoped to get all 7 boats on the water. Weather permitting.

The highlight of the weekend came on Sunday. One of the organizers of the Expo was talking about how there was a woman there who was visually impaired and they didn't have anything to offer her in the way of activity. I stuck my nose in there and offered to speak to her. I told her about the boats, the Homerus Project, and what we've done in Sydney with the blind sailors, then invited her to come and check out the 303. Once she sat in the boat, she stayed there for an hour and a half, phoning her eldest son and one of her friends to tell them that she was at the expo and sitting in a boat. After a while we went inside to get lunch. Her friend showed up and they wanted to go back out to the boat. I had to go to the bathroom and told them to go ahead. When I got back to the boat these two women were sitting in the 303 drinking coffee and having a great chat. (The boat was sitting on a sponge foam pad all weekend to protect the bottom)

The organizers have invited us back for next year. They say it will be a much bigger event, with displays from other parts of Europe and asked if the boat manufacturer would possibly attend. I told them that we can probably get Ernö there and that Zoltan and the Access Dinghy will certainly be there. Then I invited them to come to our sailing day on June 12th. As one of the organizers was in plaster for a broken ankle, it would be a perfect opportunity for him to experience our kind of sailing first hand.

The weather this spring has been good. Sunny and dry. Until last Wednesday. Then a cold front passed overhead, the temperature dropped to 12 Celcius and it started raining. My potential sailors started calling to ask what would happen if it was raining on Sunday. I promised that I would be there with the boats regardless of weather, as it is often different lakeside from what is happening in the city, and if the morning weather was poor, it could be perfect all afternoon. Sunday morning it was overcast, but the forecast was for partly cloudy skies and temperatures around 20 degrees.

We left home at 7:30, picked up a volunteer and her boyfriend before getting on the highway, and made it to the marina at Balatonfüzfö by 9 AM. This marina is so new that workmen were still laying pavers along the edge of our pier on Sunday morning. It was cloudy, and we felt the occassional drop of rain, but there was good breeze on the lake and the 7 boats were lined up on the grass: 3 Access 303s, 2 Access 303S and two Access 2.3s, one wide, one single. We could put 11 people on the water at once, and 3 of those could be servo-assisted. Eager sailors began arriving before we had the first boat rigged. A reporter and photographer from Vitorlás (a Hungarian sailing magazine) were there, too. We sent the reporter out in the first boat that was ready, and set about talking our sailors and helpers through the process of rigging an Access Dinghy. People kept arriving until we had 25-30 potential new sailors and enough volunteers to keep 6 boats alfoat all day. I soon lost track of the time.

The clouds stayed with us all morning and the wind picked up to the point where I was considering having everyone reef. Lake Balaton is relatively shallow and develops fairly tall waves in no time at all. (This was why we brought 303s to Hungary instead of 2.3s) One of our new sailors went to change out of his wet clothes, beaming from ear to ear while he mock-protested that nobody had told him this was a watersport! Then about noon the sky cleared, the wind settled a bit and it was a glorious afternoon for sailing. Another sailor boasted that he had been out 5 times, and I remembered speaking to him at the rehab expo, where he'd told me that he was very interested but felt he was too old to learn a new sport. We managed to prove him wrong.

At the end of the day, everyone went home satisfied with the day and eager for more. They're asking when we can start racing because one or two want to go to the Sabaudia Cup in Italy in October, and then there's Beijing in 2008.