Sailing Hero Gives The Rest Of Us Food for Thought

September 3, 2009

Having fought the elements, exhaustion and the extreme limitations of her own body, 37-year-old Hilary Lister calmly sailed into Dover as well as in the record books today being the first female quadriplegic to circumnavigate Britain solo.

The Oxford-graduate biochemist, who’s afflicted by a rare, degenerative neurological disorder that has paralyzed the young woman from the neck down, has completed the final portion of a marathon journey undertaken in a string of 40 day-long sails.

With the help of advanced technology, which allowing her to control the sails by sucking and blowing through plastic tube, Lister sailed solo with help of a team only to attend to her when she got into and out of her sailboat, Me Too. She finally sailed over the finishing line to enthusiastic crowds at 6.45pm.

The young woman expressed contentment upon her return to Dover, saying that the highlight of her expedition was witnessing marine wildlife at close range.

Lister, hailing from Canterbury, Kent, has reflex sympathetic dystrophy and is only capable of moving her head, eyes and mouth. Tempted in the past as she went through the darkest of moments to end the physical ordeal she suffers everyday and the frustration which comes from being imprisoned in her own body, she now claims that sailing has saved her life.

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