In an interview with CNN’s Mainsail, blind sailor Lucy Hodges MBE discusses how she utilises her senses to overcome her condition and in turn, win two gold medals.

Born with photophobia nystagmus — a condition that causes involuntary movement of the eyes and affects eyesight – Hodges has been sailing since she was 17, relying on her senses to help her navigate the water. She tells CNN she has always felt more at home on the water and not held back by her partial eyesight.

Hodges tells CNN: “It’s leaving your white stick and your dog on the shore and going out being part of a crew, being part of a team — you can literally compete alongside anyone.”

Hodges fulfilled a life’s goal when she won the World and International Blind Sailing Championships in Japan back in 2013 – matching the feat again in 2017 in the United States. It’s a huge achievement when you consider she can’t acturally see the buoy…

When not training, Mainsail hears how Hodges spends her time working on Brexit at her full-time job with the UK government and as commodore of the charity, GBR Blind Sailing. It was for this charity work that Hodges was recognised with an MBE in 2014.

With the Blind Sailing charity, Hodges helps those not only born visually impaired but those who have lost their sight during adulthood, providing sailing training, as well as educating sighted people on what it’s like to sail blind.

On how she relies on her senses to navigate at sea Hodges says: “You find that people with visual impairment tend to take the natural senses that they use to compensate for not having sight. We naturally feel the breeze on our faces and we listen to how the boats are moving through the water and we feel the boat through our body.”

On her the work with the Blind Sailing Charity: “We saved a lady from suicide two years ago,” she says. “She had full sight and she was a sailor, she loved her sailing and she woke up one morning and both retinas had detached, and they didn’t go back on… It’s not just about being on the water with us, it’s about life and everything. In the charity we create an environment where you can talk about your day, talk about your sailing and on top of that also talk about what’s going on at home.”

On the unique conditions of sailing: “When you drive a car, you keep the wheel straight when you want to go straight but when you’re driving a yacht there’s lots of different elements that change the force. They won’t let me drive a car around the M25 by myself, but they’ll let me drive a boat by myself!

Read the full story on CNN: https://cnn.it/2uPVIl4