BRAVING the snow and freezing winds to sail a boat on the Solent is hard enough – but even harder when you cannot see the race course.

That’s the challenge being undertaken by the Blind Sailing UK team on a monthly basis.

The blind and visually-impaired sailors have deeply impressed Portland Paralympian Hannah Stodel, who has been teaching them for the past three months and “learning a lot” herself.

Last weekend, the charity-run group and Stodel battled snow and delayed public transport to get to the UKSA training centre on Cowes, Isle of Wight, to spend five hours on the water in Sonar keelboats.

Stodel, who is the tactician for the British Sonar Team and campaigning for the Rio 2016 Games with John Robertson and Steve Thomas, is enjoying volunteering with the group in her spare time.

But last weekend tested her love of the sport to the limit.

Stodel said: “I’ve never been so cold – we were chiseling lumps of snow off the Sonars, it was crazy.

“It was minus five at one point, plus the wind chill but in the end we spent five hours on the water and got some really productive sailing in.”

Stodel, aged 27, of Easton said the Blind Sailing UK group have been teaching her as much as she has taught them.

She said: “The first weekend I jumped on the Sonar I messed up a lot.

“We got to the bottom of the mark and I was expecting them to go around and they just carried on.

“When I said we’d missed the mark, they said ‘You didn’t tell us it was there!’ “I’ve learned so much working with them about communication and things I take for granted.”

The 23-strong group are currently in training for the IFDS Blind Sailing World Championships, held this May in Japan, where three crews will be representing Britain.

Each competing boat will have two visually impaired sailors and two sighted people on board– one hands-on crewmember and a tactician who can talk but not help.

Stodel, who is disapointed she cannot join them as it clashes with a standard Sonar event, said: “It’s tricky being the tactician on board as you have to learn to not get involved.

“Even when ropes are in a tangle, you can only describe the problem, not fix it yourself.”

The British Sonar Team’s first Paralympic classes World Cup regatta of the year will be taking place in Hyeres in April but first they are off to Murcia, Spain, in February for land-based training.

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