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Ahoy Matey! BAADS Sails the High Seas
By Paulette Bleam
The morning sun glistens on his wheelchair as he readies the boat for the day. Twenty-three years ago, he would have never thought he'd be a sailor. Grunting with effort, he makes small hops and manages to get out of his wheelchair, off of the dock and into the boat.
"I'm going for a sail," he says. "I'll be back in just a couple minutes." And with that, he sails away.
He returns a few minutes later. Cigarette by his side, his bare fingertips carefully twist the burning ashes over the water. Like a true sailor, he places the butt in his pocket.
He then begins to tell his story. Gregory Williams, sometimes known as "The Sarge," was an ironworker until about 20 years ago, when he was knocked off of a high beam, to plummet seven stories to the new life that was awaiting him.
Today he is an active skipper and teaches people to sail from the angle of his wheelchair.
"Twenty-three years ago was my first life, and this is my second life," he says, "and I'm just getting the hang of it now."
Deciding that he needed to find his new limitations after his injury, he went to test the waters.
"I didn't know what I could do when I got hurt," he says. "I had to learn the way I wanna live and not the way people think I should."
After his first sailing experience, he was hooked.
"It became my drug of choice," he says. "And now I'm addicted."
Williams is just one of the BAADS boys, also known as the Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors. The group is comprised of 125 sailors — about half of whom are disabled — who get together every weekend to sail the waters of the San Francisco Bay.
"We're all a bit of adrenaline junkies," Williams admits.
BAADS offers private instruction to interested students, disabled or not. There are a wide range of disabilities making up the group, including those who are blind, deaf, stroke victims, those having multiple sclerosis, and so on. A few remarkable sailors are quadriplegics, and while strapped in a sturdy chair, they steer the boat with a joystick, using their chins.
Some of the instructors, like Williams, are disabled themselves. The group also offers full training opportunities for volunteers to coach the "new meat," as they like to call their new members.
"When you get out of this thing and leave it behind, it's heaven," says Williams. "You're on your own. It's about enjoying mother earth and the ocean; you can't replace it."
He feels his disability does not prevent him from tackling the world head on .
"[People] just think I'm a sweet little disabled guy," he says. "[They say], 'He gets out there every day.'"
But Williams doesn't abide by these unspoken "rules" for the disabled. His tough, outdoorsy nature is seen in his bearded face, as he pushes his wheelchair briskly across the dingy dock.
"If I see a wall, I climb over it," he says. "Obstacles are just a way of life."
The BAADS mobiles are designed to make for an easy ride. The "Liberty" prides itself in being the unsinkable, untippable boat that is a fave of its riders. The other boats, and even the dinghy dock, have been adapted for easy access for the sailors. Williams said the sport is pretty expensive "for a bunch of gimpy guys."
Like Williams, Herb Meyer is drawn to sailing for his love of the sport. He is the commodore of BADDS, and even has a drink named after him — "Herb on the Rocks" — from a recent boating mishap, where he parked his ride a tad off the beaten path.
Unlike Williams, Meyer, 74,was a sailor before his accident. His first sailing experience was with his uncle, when they entered a race and won it. And he, too, has been addicted ever since.
"It's you, the wind and the water," Meyers says.
For more information on the program, go to www.baads.org.