In a year when charities struggled with fundraising due to Covid 19, one determined young lady and her family continued the long planned for Challenge to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a boat specially adapted.
Natasha (23) has quadriplegic cerebral palsy sails a boat converted by her Dad, Gary. The boat can be sailed both conventionally and using the sip puff system by Natasha who uses her breath to steer the boat and trim the sails. This unique and clever system uses open source software, a series of switches, a ram and electronic winches.
Natasha who loves to fundraise as she sails, to take part in her local community and has raised the funds for three charities all close to her heart. The RNLI, The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust and The Miss Isle School of Sip puff Sailing.
As lockdown eased last summer, the Lambert family sailed the 2,000 miles from Cowes down to The Canary Islands, and the start point in Las Palmas, to take part in the ARC 2020.
On the 22 November, Natasha along with Dad Gary, Mum Amanda and Sister Rachel (14) set off on Natasha’s bigest Challenge to date to sail by sip-puff across the Atlantic, an offshore sail of 2800 miles, encountering all sorts of conditions including a lightning storm that lasted for 2 days! Finally arriving in St Lucia, on December 11th at 6.30am, 18 days 21hours and 39 minutes after setting out.
The total raised by this expedition being £10,029.00 to be split equally by the charities. Natasha and her family would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped, all the generous donations from many people and all the companies that offered support.
Natasha on arriving in the Caribbean, was thrilled to have completed her latest Challenge and said “This isn’t the end, I want to do so much more!”
