Sailing

Matt has sailed since he was a child. After his accident, due to lack of mobility, most sports were out of reach. Sailing was a revelation as Matt found that this was a sport that he could do sitting down and on a level playing field. Taking to it like the proverbial duck to water, he never looked back.

Because sailing races are run on a handicap system, any boat can race any other, fast against slow. The winning boat will be the one that is sailed the best. This of course means that juniors can race seniors… and win.

Matt is an ex commodore and current sailing secretary of Hickling Broad Sailing Club. He is an RYA sailing instructor and is active in both adult and junior sail training.

Given any opportunity Matt would go sailing. After his aborted 1997 row, he was picked up by the 67ft challenge yacht 3Com. One adventure was over but a month on a racing yacht in the Atlantic was not a bad way to spend some time, fuelling Matt’s child hood ambition to sail the Atlantic. That ambition was realised in 2007 when he sailed the 65ft millennium yacht Spirit of Isis.