CAROLINA SAILING
Healing and Dealing on the Water By Dan Dickison
T
here are a lot of ways to tap into the power of sailing. Elite photographers do that when they freeze a vignette of a vessel heeled over, charging through the brine, spray flying and sails under full strain. Instructors do it when they turn a fledgling sailor loose on the helm for the first time, and that pupil experiences the empowering epiphany that says “I can do this.” But few others tap into it as effectively as the folks
54 March 2013
SOUTHWINDS
who run Veterans on Deck— a nonprofit aimed at social reintegration for U.S. war veterans, particularly those living with PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder). Veterans on Deck (VoD), which was mentioned here in the September 2010 issue, is an all-volunteer, Charleston, S.C.-based organization that was just getting off the ground at the time, but had Country music singer and TV personality Trace Adkins (in cowboy big plans. Psychologist Ron hat) visits with Veterans on Deck organizers and participants after Acierno, a co-founder of VoD and director of the PTSD sailing. Clinic at Charleston’s Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, told SOUTHWINDS then: “A lot of our veterans are socially withdrawn, and they particularly avoid social interactions where stress is involved.” One Stop Shop: Acierno’s brainchild was to use sailing as a means of Custom Sails addressing that. Rigging According to Acierno, sailing offers important ingrediElectronics ents that can help counter the withdrawal and avoidance all too common in veterans with depression or PTSD. “First, sailing with others can be stressful, which ironically, is good. Second, short of swimming away, you can’t just withdraw from the situation; you have to deal with the stress and each other, which is also good. Third, once you do this, you frequently end up enjoying yourself, despite the stress, and that’s a big step toward true recovery.” Flip the calendar forward to 2013 and a lot has happened since those early days. Says Acierno, “Though we’re totally independent of the VA, our organization has been formally recognized by the VA as a non-paid community partner, and that’s really significant. It means that appropriate providers from the VA hospital can use our program for their patients as a therapeutic activity. That status took 18 months for us to secure.” In addition, he says, VoD has been on local and national TV—“We were featured on Trace Adkins’ cable TV show Great American Heroes. They actually ran our episode about 13 times. Adkins is a big supporter of veterans, and when he was here in Charleston last spring for a concert, he met our veterans and went out sailing with them as the basis for that show. It was huge exposure for the program.” Despite that fame, no metric is more important than the impact that sailing has had on those veterans who’ve been fortunate enough to spend time on the organization’s small
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