• Boat's direction controlled by blowing through straws
Caroline Davies The Guardian,
Paralysed from the neck down, Hilary Lister used advanced technology allowing her to steer and control the sails by sucking and blowing through plastic straws.
Having battled the elements, exhaustion and the severe limitations of her own body, Hilary Lister, 37, sailed into Dover and the record books today as the first female quadriplegic to sail solo around Britain.
The Oxford-educated biochemist, who suffers from a rare, progressive neurological disorder that has left her paralysed from the neck down, completed the final leg of a marathon voyage undertaken in a series of 40 day-long sails.
Using advanced technology allowing her to steer and control the sails by sucking and blowing through plastic straws, she sailed alone with a support team only helping her into and out of her boat, Me Too. After being briefly becalmed in the Channel last night, she finally crossed the finishing line to cheering crowds at 6.45pm.
"It's a privilege to be back in Dover," she said from her boat at the quayside. "The killer was when the wind died just east of the entrance to the harbour but unbelievably it picked up just as I sailed in."
She said the highlight of her challenge was seeing marine wildlife at close quarters. "Just seeing whales 35ft long fully breached out of the water was incredible," she said. "Two of them jumped like dolphins, it was amazing."
Lister, from Canterbury, Kent, suffers from reflex sympathetic dystrophy and can only move her head, eyes and mouth. Tempted in her darkest moments to end the physical pain she suffers daily and the frustration at being imprisoned in her body, she has said "sailing saved my life".
"I'm so relieved to be home but looking forward to the next challenge," she said before a bottle of celebratory champagne was opened. "One thing I've learnt is that you can't predict the future, we couldn't even predict tomorrow's weather so I'm not ruling anything out or anything in."
In 2005 she made history by becoming the first quadriplegic to sail solo across the Channel. Her voyage around Britain began in Dover in June last year when she sailed the length of the south coast. But she was forced to halt the attempt at Newlyn, Cornwall, last August due to weather and technical difficulties.
Plans to resume in Plymouth in early May were delayed after she suffered breathing difficulties while preparing. She was taken to hospital and placed under observation, but eventually set off at dawn on 21 May.
Since then she has attempted to sail on four days each week. The series of sails took her along the east coast of Ireland, and then down the east coast of Scotland and England. "In terms of experiences … we had some incredible receptions from people who had waited hours to watch us come in," she said as she arrived in Ramsgate ahead of the final 15-mile leg to Dover.
She added: "I'm probably fitter than when I left and almost certainly in better health. Sailing makes me happy, it gives me a reason to get up in the morning – but at the same time I am absolutely kippered."
She experienced the first signs of disease as shooting pains in her legs as a teenager. Determined to be a biochemist, she pressed on to study at Jesus College, Oxford.
But the disease did eventually deprive her of an academic career, as well as a secondary career as a clarinet teacher.
By the time she married her husband, Clifford, in 1999 she had begun to lose the use of her hands and arms.
Confined to her house and a wheelchair, she was introduced to sailing by a friend in 2003.
Her "sip and puff" system uses three straws that are connected to sensitive pressure switches to change the boat's direction, control the sails and the boom.
She hopes to have raised £30,000 from her voyage for her charity, Hilary's Dream Trust, which assists disabled and disadvantaged adults who want to sail.
Sip and puff control
This is the first time the "sip and puff" system had been tested in such challenging conditions, according to Lister's team. Her boat, Me Too, is an Artemis 20: a six-metre carbon fibre keelboat, designed by Rogers Yacht Design under commission by Chichester-based Vizual Marine.
She controls the boat using the "sip and puff" system, developed by Steve Alvey of Calgary, Canada.
The system uses three straws which are connected to sensitive pressure switches. A computer is mounted in front of Hilary.
A gentle sip on one straw will cause the boat to go to starboard, while a puff will take the boat to port. The second straw controls the winch motor for both sails in a similar fashion. The third straw allows her to control her Raymarine autopilot, to trim one sail relative to the other and raise or lower the height of the boom.
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