“MR. SMEE” is spelled out on his license plate as he leaves the Coronado Yacht Club.
Apart from relating himself to the old Disney cartoon, Jamie McArthur is known for his adaptive sailing foundation.
Adaptive sailing, or para sailing as it is known on international waters, is just like any other parasport. It’s meant for people with disabilities to participate in sports adapted to their disability. And para sailing is no different.
In Coronado, a big part of adaptive sailing is through the KMAC Foundation, named after McArthur’s son, Lt. Junior Grade Kyle McArthur, who was involved in a fatal automobile accident in 2013.
This year’s KMAC Foundation Regatta will be held April 28-30, with a racing clinic and practice along with a race and dinner to support the foundation at the Coronado Yacht Club. All donations go to support the foundation.
Kyle loved sailing, and the entire family spent most of their time on the water, according to McArthur who has been sailing for the last 59 years.
Foundation’s beginning
However, there is a lot more to how and why the foundation started.
McArthur has been a special needs dad for the last 37 years, and he taught special education for 15 years after spending more than two decades in the Coast Guard as a boat driver.
Operating boats and working with disabled individuals is something that McArthur has done for more than half his life.
And he believes that disabled people should have just as much opportunity to experience sailing as people who do not have disabilities, he says.
“We don’t care if you’re a veteran, a child, we will make it work.”
-Jamie McArthur
“We don’t care if you’re a veteran, a child, we will make it work,” McArthur says, seated at the Coronado Yacht Club. “And the freedom that sailing gives people, especially if you’re in a wheelchair and all of a sudden you’re driving! You’re going, ‘hey, I’m going to go over here.’”
The boats that the foundation have are three Hansa 303’s, a single or two-crew sailing keelboat.
Different people have different disabilities; so there are various technologies that are available for what is needed, McArthur says.
“Technology is phenomenal”
“The technology is phenomenal, to allow somebody to get in a boat and do that,” McArthur says.
There are button drives for people who have the ability to move their thumbs. There are chin drives, a technology that rests on an individual’s chin to allow them to drive the boat.
There are also assistive technologies based on air.
McArthur demonstrates by saying, “sometimes it’s a puff drive. They…” McArthur blows a short puff of air out his mouth before continuing, “…and they can control the servos, turn the sails and drive the boat.”
On March 31, McArthur received an adaptive boat to test drive.
It had two seats for adaptive sailors, and space for two people in the back for safety reasons.
Ran Whitrey, a retired Navy commander, tested out the boat.
The tiller, which is what steers the sailboat, is normally in the back of the boat. In the adaptive sailboat, there is an improvised tiller in front of the two seats. It allows the adaptive sailor to steer the boat from the seat.
McArthur oversees from the dock, staying on dry land due to a recent hip surgery.
“In his spirit”
Back at the Coronado Yacht Club, McArthur tells a story about Kyle, noting that even 10 years later the KMAC Foundation will hear Kyle’s name throughout events and regattas.
Captain of the football team and the lacrosse team in high school, Kyle was known as an excellent leader, says McArthur.
“He could be approached…you’d be surprised how many people still reach out to me from his class at the [Naval] Academy,” he said.
Kyle was a “hot-shot” stud in high school, says McArthur, but he understood leadership and he took on the role as mentor for younger classmates at the Academy.
“It’s in his spirit,” McArthur says.
