Amazing Race Described
in Press Club Address
Blinded veteran Urban Miyares, a former member of the BVA Board of Directors and a member of the San Diego Regional Group, addressed the topic, “People of Persistence: A Journey Beyond Disability,” as the featured speaker at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, DC, on December 8.
Urban is the founder and president of the San Diego-based Disabled Businesspersons Association and the co-founder of Challenged America, a free learn-to-sail program dedicated to enhancing the rehabilitation of youth and adults with disabilities, including those with severe and catastrophic disabilities.
A Vietnam veteran, Urban is also a former National Disabled Veteran of the Year, a Presidential Point of Light Recipient, an inspirational speaker and lecturer, entrepreneur, published writer and columnist, inventor and patent holder, media personality, and world-class athlete.
The presentation, hosted by the National Science Foundation and sponsored by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation, highlighted the technology, creativity, and indomitable courage and spirit that propelled six members of the Challenged America Team to complete a grueling 2,225-mile yacht race from Los Angeles to Honolulu last July 11-24. All but one of the sailors was disabled with such obstacles as quadriplegia, paraplegia, neuromuscular disease, blindness, and cancer.
Racing in a yacht named B’Quest, the flagship of Challenged America, the sailors finished fourth in a class of able-bodied sailors and in the top third overall. The total field included 75 vessels. The Transpacific Yacht Race is one of the oldest ocean races in the world, having celebrated its centennial birthday as B’Quest raced across the Pacific.
“Accomplishments in so many fields of endeavor, and the progress we have made as a society, are represented by Challenged America’s feat in the face of what appeared to be insurmountable adversity,” said Urban.
B’Quest is a customized 40-foot racing yacht outfitted with specially designed equipment, including secured cockpit seats engineered by undergraduate mechanical engineering students at San Diego State University (SDSU) and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The devices enabled every member of the B-Quest crew to compete effectively throughout the journey.
“The teams against which we competed treated us like everyone else and granted us no sympathy,” said Urban. “That is precisely how we wanted it to be.”
The Press Club event also featured an informational design and display that included some of the prototype equipment designed for the yacht. Accompanying Urban at the luncheon was SDSU mechanical engineering professors Karen May-Newman and Michael Lambert. Alex Antonio, a university upperclassman representing the many students involved, also made the trip from San Diego.
Antonio participated in a senior design project that involved interacting with the disabled sailors and designing systems that would solve a range of mobility and related problems on the yacht. The end result was a successful trip during which the disabled sailors were, at one point, as far away from land as anyone on earth could possibly be.
The SDSU students and professors are part of a long-running NSF program entitled “Engineering Senior Design Projects for Persons with Disabilities.” The program matches collegiate engineers with individuals in their community who are in need of assistive devices that either do not exist or are prohibitively expensive.
The broad goal of NSF’s partnership with SDSU and Challenged America is to connect engineering student teams and sailors with disabilities in the development of adaptive equipment for aquatic recreational activities. The program helps mechanical engineering students develop their design skills while enabling sailors with various physical and sensory impairments to compete effectively.
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