A one-off grant of £5,000 was made to UK North Blind Sailing Association in December 2010 to assist with the costs of refurbishing the Milne class yacht, Mermaid.

UK North Blind Sailing is based in Wallasey and the main catchment area to recruit blind participants and volunteers is Merseyside, Wirral and North Wales. There are some 60 members aged between 18 and 75 from across the region, plus 9 core volunteer, some of whom are sighted, qualified sailing instructors.

The group’s aims are to provide sail training for blind people, to allow them to participate in local, national and international sailing events. Last year the organisation facilitated keel boat training weekends for 45 blind and partially sighted people on a number of different residential stays at the Welsh National Watersports Centre at Plas Menai and organised their first RYA Dinghy Sailing course at West Kirby for ten visually impaired peopled. Volunteers provided transport to and from events, sighted crews and instructors on the water and guides inside and outside the sailing centres.

The sailing activities offer opportunities for social inclusion for blind and partially sighted members who, because of their disability, are frequently isolated from mainstream society through poverty, low educational achievement, low self-esteem, lack of employment opportunities, the inability to use any form of transport unaided, the inability to read facial expression and body language during social interaction, all coupled with the general public’s lack of awareness concerning the needs of visually impaired people.

The refurbishment was completed by a team of volunteers, both sighted and visually impaired and Mermaid made the second deadline for launching on 27th July and is now moored in The River Mersey off Rock Ferry. The Royal Mersey Yacht Club had set this date as “lift out day" for the Milne class yachts travelling to North Wales to take part in the Menai Straits Regatta so Mermaid was able to take advantage of this facility and be craned into the river.