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Interview with Sailor Geoff Holt

Written on 02 April 2009 by Mark Lewis. 4 comments.

Geoff Holt is a 43-year-old husband, father, and sailor. His professional sailing career was cut short when he had a swimming accident that left him a quadriplegic in 1984. He was one of those, “rare-breed of people actually paid money to sail other people’s beautifully yachts.”

Geoff changed careers and worked his way up to the head of a marketing department for an international firm of accountants. In 1995 he helped establish the RYA Sailability, a disabled sailing charity offering sailing opportunities to over 20,000 disabled people a year throughout the UK.

As a disabled sailor, Geoff has challenged himself to inspire others and create awareness for disabled sailing. His next challenge is called Personal Atlantic. If you are not inspired to take on your own challenges after reading his interview, you should see a doctor.

A big thanks to Geoff for taking the time to answer some questions.

What inspired you to take on Personal Atlantic?

As a teenager, I had sailed more than 30,000 miles at sea including 3 trans-Atlantic crossings by the age of 17. After my accident, I thought I would never sail gain. It was to be 7 years before I even got back in a boat again, but once I had a taste for it, there was no stopping me. In 1992 I became the first disabled person to sail single-handed the 70 miles around the Isle of Wight. I did it again in 1997 and remain the only disabled person to have done it twice.

In 2007, 23 years after my accident, I put together a project called Personal Everest, to sail single-handed around Great Britain. Sailing a succession of day-sails and sleeping overnight in a motorhome, it took me 109 days and me and my team visited 51 different destinations around the UK before arriving back to Southampton on 5th September 2007, coincidentally, 23 years to the day, almost to the minute that I had broken my neck.

Although the prospect of sailing the Atlantic had seemed inconceivable, completing Personal Everest proved to myself that I could achieve the seemingly unachievable. I certainly have the seagoing experience and I know how to sail. The only real barrier would be finding the right boat. I knew of a wheelchair accessible, ocean-going catamaran that had been designed specifically for someone in a wheelchair to sail with full push-button technology and luckily for me, the owner said I could borrow it.

What do you hope to accomplish with Personal Atlantic?

Well, there are two aspects to this. First and foremost, I want to build upon Personal Everest which inspired many people to take a look at their own lives. I would hope that it will encourage some people, regardless of ability, to look at sailing as a possible sporting activity, but it goes much deeper than that. It is not really about disability nor sailing. It is about doing something positive with your life. We only get one life, and if, through my actions, it helps inspire or motivate someone to realise that our only limits in life are the one’s we set ourselves, then I will feel that I have achieved my main ambition.

A disabled person made a point to me last week. She said that able-bodied people have any number of athletes or celebrities who they can look up to as role-models. Disabled people also like to have their own role models. How many disabled role-models could I name? I thought about it for a while and I understood what she meant. I didn’t set out to make myself a role-model, it happened quite by chance. But knowing it is how some people perceive me, it is a responsibility I take very seriously indeed.

I said there were 2 reasons. The second is a very personal one. Crossing the Atlantic again, for the 4th time, but my first as a quadriplegic is important to me. For too long I have been living off memories of those earlier voyages. The sensation of remoteness, isolation, complete insignificance within the vastness of the ocean. The darkest of nights when the green phosphorescence from dolphins looks like torpedoes, the brightest of nights when the sky is a mass of silvery stars, more than can imagine. For all these reasons, I want to relive it again. And there is something quite fitting about sailing back across the Atlantic to the very beach where I had my accident all those years ago, the last place I ever walked. Except this time I will be returning as a quadriplegic yachtsman.

What are some of the lessons that you have learned about life as a result of your sailing?

Crikey, now there’s a question. When I finished writing my autobiography Walking on Water last year, I took a couple of days and re-read my own story. I concluded that sailing had been the thread which has run through my life. It does not govern my life, nor did I set out to make it part of my life, it is just the way it is. You could call it “the calling of the sea”, and I certainly feel at home when I am on it, near it or can see it.

One of the most memorable feelings which hit me most was that day in 1991 when, for the first time in 7 years and my first time as a disabled person, I got into a boat and sailed it myself. I had this overwhelming sense of independence. For the first time since being disabled, I was making the decision whether to go left or right, faster or slower. I had got used to either being pushed in my wheelchair wherever the person pushing me wanted to go, or I had to ask to go left, right, forward, backwards or stop. I suddenly realised, sat there in my boat, the waves splashing over me and the spray in my eyes, that I felt free again. I had effectively left my disability on the quayside and I was now truly making my own decisions. Time and time again I see that same sense of independence and freedom every time I see a disabled person go sailing. I guess, without realising it, sailing is my life.

What has been your biggest challenge in life?

Without doubt, the mental torment of being dependent on others is my biggest challenge in life. That might surprise some people who think it would be my disability. It is not. I can deal with the disability. Of course it is not ideal, but you can manage you life so it becomes less difficult to exist as a disabled person. The one aspect I can not change is my reliance on others to help me get dressed, to get washed, to use the loo, to prepare food. I hate that. At times it eats away at me and it is the one thing, above all others, that I would change.

The other challenges are not a lot different to those faced by anybody else, regardless of ability. They are challenges of finding work, earning enough money to provide a comfortable standard of living, relationships etc., the list goes on. Of course, being disabled, only adds to the challenge, but you just have to get on with it.

What’s your mantra?

“No Excuses”. It is so easy to find excuses not to do things but I believe we should train ourselves to challenge these negative thoughts. The feeling of success, when you achieve something against the odds, is like no other.

What advice can you give for others to help them take on their own challenges?

Of course the easy answer is to say “go for it”, but it is rarely this simple. It might seem a very technical process, but I would suggest one of the first things is to ask yourself whether the Challenge is genuinely realistic. There’s a big difference between a challenge and a pipe dream. Embarking on a pipe dream will do nothing but crush your self-confidence. It is important to try and be objective and to do the feasibility studies and risk-assessments, never stop asking yourself; “how”? and “what if”? You must plan with your head, not your heart. If you are satisfied that you have done all the planning and that you have done everything you can to minimize risk to yourself and those you are relying upon to help you, then “go for it”.

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