The high-performance C&C 30 One Design skiff is a twitchy, skittish beast not for the faint of heart. This much I was discovering in an elemental way, perched on the windward rail with eight fellow crewmen on the C&C 30 Chinook in this past fall’s annual Sail for Hope fundraising regatta on Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay.
It was a puffy, shifty, challenging day for helming, and I was more than happy to serve as human ballast on the long, upwind tacks. At the same time, I was mightily impressed with the dude at the tiller skillfully carving our course to weather. His name is Steve Baskis. He’s a decorated Army veteran, one of several who were on the boat.
Yet even in this distinguished company, Baskis was different. He couldn’t see a bloody thing.
Chinook was competing under the figurative flag of a nonprofit organization called Sail To Win. Founded by Army combat vet Aaron “Ike” Isaacson and professional sailors Mike Patterson and Whitney Curtin, the group’s mission statement is straightforward: “To honor and empower wounded veterans, first responders and people that have served their community with disabilities by training, educating and competing in sailing competitions around the globe.”
Isaacson received the Purple Heart after being wounded during one of his several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He told me: “I was lying in a hospital bed, and my thoughts went back to being a kid and the fun things I always wanted to do, like sailing and mountaineering. Those became my two main targets: sailing around the world and climbing all the mountains I could.”
Baskis lost his sight outside Baghdad in 2008 when his vehicle was raked by an improvised explosive device. A lifelong athlete, he was also hospitalized and pondered his next moves: “Thinking about how to rebuild my life, I just realized if I get out and do things, it’s going to force me to adapt, to communicate.” He moved to Colorado and got into cycling, whitewater kayaking and, eventually, mountaineering. In fact, he met Isaacson on a climbing expedition to Nepal.
“We’ve been like family ever since,” said Isaacson, who ultimately concluded that sailing, not mountaineering, was more of a lifelong pursuit. That’s when he reached out to Patterson and Curtin, whose family owns the classic 12-Metre and two-time America’s Cup winner Intrepid, which also hosts Sail To Win outings. Down the road, the organization hopes to land a larger donated boat (which is how they obtained Chinook) for offshore training and racing, perhaps even a transatlantic race.
Baskis has steered both the stately 12 and the frisky C&C. I asked him what, if anything, was the difference. “On Intrepid, you’re standing at the wheel, and you can feel the tension and the weight and the energy it takes to carry it through the water,” he said. “On Chinook, you’re steering with a tiller. It’s way more reactive. You feel like you’re dancing through the water.”
The Sail for Hope racecourse was a 20-odd-mile lap around Conanicut Island, and there were plenty of sail changes, including a couple of long stretches under spinnaker. The dance was ever-changing. Isaacson said that the team has experimented with haptics technology—the vibration you feel on your smartphone—to help get Baskis in a groove while driving. “We’ve been developing a watch that vibrates when Steve’s on the helm, that signals whether he’s on course or veering off,” he said.
However, that’s still in the experimental stage, and during our race, Patterson served as both tactician and guide, perched alongside Baskis and providing steady input on wind strength and direction, the sea state, and the competition. “It was a tough day with the breeze up and down, constantly changing pressure,” Patterson said. “But Steve hung in there. He’s a very active guy. He’s done all sorts of adventure sports since he lost his vision.” Even up on the rail, it was easy to understand that he’d be a hard dude to rattle.
Later, after talking to Baskis a bit more, it seemed to me that two things were true: Yes, of course, Baskis is blind; yet his true soul and spirit, his inner vision, is crystal-clear.
Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.
