Orbit update, Sailing champs

Blind sailors Sharon Grennan and Toby Davey joined Peter in the studio to talk about their passion for sailing.

THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT.  BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY.

IN TOUCH – Orbit update, Sailing champs

TX:  26.09.2017  2040-2100

PRESENTER:           PETER WHITE

PRODUCER:             CHERYL GABRIEL

White

Good evening.  Tonight:  the machine hailed as ‘saving the braille’ if only they could get it past the factory gate.  And the visually-impaired sailors who’ve returned from world championships loaded with medals.  But just how does a blind helmswoman steer?

Clip

Feeling the boat through our bottoms is what I teach all the kids – feel through your bottom.  And you can feel the speed of the boat, you can feel the weight of where people’s body movements are.  So we may not use technology but the key bits of our body become the technology that we use to sail.

White

Unorthodox.  More from Lucy, Sharon and Toby later in the programme.

But first, we often hear that braille is past its sell-by date.  Well, whether that’s true or not is a debate for another programme.  But one of the many obstacles to getting more people to use braille is the high cost of the equipment which produces it electronically.  Commercial machines to do that are priced in the thousands of pounds bracket and if that’s a problem in the so-called first world, you can see how much of one it’s going to be for countries where money is really tight.  So the idea of a device which produces digital braille at a fraction of the cost has become something of a holy grail.  And yet 18 months ago on this programme that’s exactly what we were told we were going to get.  The Orbit Reader would sell at somewhere between three and four hundred pounds.  Ten organisations representing blind people around the world, including the RNIB, had bought shares in it and the RNIB’s chair, Kevin Carey, was one of the driving forces behind the new machine.  He told us at the time who would benefit.

Carey

The two big markets for it, as we defined them when we began, were current Western country braille libraries that are offering blind people a small number of titles in hard copy braille on paper.  So what that does is it tells blind people you can either have a very few braille books in hard copy braille, whereas what we’re saying is you can have an unlimited number of books in braille as long as you’re prepared to have them on a braille display.  The other big market for this is for blind kids in third world countries, many of whom I’ve seen using mobile phones, but they’re not getting the tactile braille experience, they’re just getting the speech experience on the mobile phone.  This device will allow mobile phones to Bluetooth into the braille display so they’ll be able to get braille under their fingers.  And they’re the two big markets.

White

And on the same programme, back in April 2016, the then head of RNIB Solutions, Neil Heslop, told us when it was going to happen.

Heslop

Six months.

White

Are you confident about that?

Heslop

Yeah absolutely.  The only variable that has to be determined is the final price because the final price is a function of the global orders.  The more orders that we get from all of the sight loss agencies around the world, all of the existing braille display manufacturers, all of the developing world, the more orders across the planet there are the cheaper it will be.

White

So is this genuinely a game changer do you think?

Heslop

Absolutely.

White

But October 2016 came and went, so did Christmas and here we are almost in October 2017 and still no sign of the Orbit Reader in the UK.  And now, wherever braille is discussed, there’s only one topic in town: where is the Orbit Reader?

Well last week, we asked the RNIB if we could talk again to their chair, Kevin Carey, about this, they told us he wasn’t available.  We asked if there was anyone else we could talk to about it, they said there wasn’t.  So, we turned to our reporter and keen braillist, Ian Macrae, to see what he could find out for us.  And we started with the issue of its history.

Macrae

Yes Peter, the Orbit grew out of something called the Transforming Braille Group.  Now that’s an international consortium, as you say, of 10 organisations, including RNIB in this country, others included the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, India and Canada.  And the main aim was to develop an electronic braille device which would be more affordable than existing ones.

White

So what does affordable mean?

Macrae

Well conventional braille devices cost between one and £4,000 and the one I’m using now, for instance, comes in at around £3,000.  The Transforming Braille Group were looking to bring something in that would cost less than a 1,000 – well under a £1,000.  And the Orbit was originally priced at £380, which is of course a fraction of that cost.

White

So what’s the Orbit machine actually like Ian?

Macrae

Well speaking frankly I haven’t ever actually seen one but I know you have, you actually got your hands on one for the programme.

White

Well I must – I saw one for about half an hour and I did have a look at it.  What I thought was it was neat, it was smaller than certainly some – perhaps some of the newer ones are quite small but certainly some of the older ones are bigger than that.  I liked the braille, I thought the action of the equipment was okay.  What I perhaps didn’t completely work out was this is a lot cheaper, now you don’t get things which are cheaper without some kind of comeback, so I wasn’t quite sure what I wasn’t getting for my three hundred and however many pounds it was.

Macrae

Well as I understand it from the reaction that other people have had to it, one of the things that isn’t available on it is the ability to edit text, so that does mean that it is basically kind of a top to bottom or even to navigate smoothly round text, so the fact is it is basically a start at the top and go to the bottom reader, rather than something with which you can manipulate or kind of jump about within text.  The other thing I’d heard is that the refresh rate of the 20 cell display, in other words the speed at which braille lines are replaced, is actually quite slow.

Well having heard you talk about it on the programme I wanted to look at it myself and about this time last year I asked the RNIB if I could have one on loan so that I could review it for the website that I then worked for.  And they said that they could get one to me probably by Christmas last year but it never arrived.

White

And were you given any explanation for that?

Macrae

No, in fact things went very quiet altogether on the RNIB and Orbit front and that was despite the fact that people had been being quite heavily encouraged to place pre-orders for the device at a discounted rate of £349.

White

So is the RNIB saying anything to you now?

Macrae

No.  I asked them for an update last Friday, they’ve sent me a one line email saying we have no information on this, and that’s a direct quote.

White

And is anyone else saying anything because as you’ve explained there are other countries involved, other agencies?

Macrae

Yes and I’ve spoken to two people from others of those organisations in the Transforming Braille Group.  The first is Larry Skutchan, now he’s the President of the Transforming Braille Group, and he also works for the American printing house, which is one of the subscriber organisations.  Asked about the delay he said this was probably due to the fact that the company who are producing the Orbit wanted to come up with something and deliver something which would last for years with minimal care. 

I’ve also been in touch with Neil Jarvis, he’s the Secretary of the Transforming Braille Group, but he spoke to me in his capacity as the general manager for Strategic Relations in the Blind Foundation in New Zealand.  He put the delay down to, quote “a series of production problems” and he said that once they were resolved then others came up.

White

And do either of them say when units are likely actually to become available and to get into people’s hands?

Macrae

Neil Jarvis implied that it might have been better if they had not been quite so optimistic about the delivery date previously.  But both he and the group’s president Larry Skutchan were very upbeat and very confident that units would be being shipped in significant numbers in the fairly near future.

White

So do we know why the RNIB might have been so reluctant to comment?

Macrae

Not really, I mean we can speculate.  We know, for example, that the outgoing chair, Kevin Carey, is in the process of handing over to his replacement – Ellie Southwood.  And we know that the organisation is also in the process of recruiting a new permanent Chief Exec.  But this ongoing lack of response, which is what it comes down to really, is clearly frustrating for those people interested in having an Orbit.  And I asked members of one of the technology based email discussion lists for their response and their reaction to this.  Those who responded said pretty much the same thing, which is probably best summed up by the comment from Ian Lacky.  And he said to me:  “It is rather sad that this project, which promised so much, has become a bit of a joke.  I remember seeing it on the RNIB shop that you could pre-order the device this time last year.”  So he obviously thinks that the whole thing has turned into a bit of a white elephant.

White

Ian Macrae, thank you very much indeed.  Well we did go back to the RNIB this morning, in fact, with the results of Ian’s report.  They have now given us this statement.  They say that there have been some production delays with the Orbit, but, they go on, “We are committed to working with the other members of the Transforming Braille Group to bring to market a product that is both high quality and affordable, so that it can be made available to as many people as possible”. 

What we don’t have yet from them or indeed anyone else really is a date when it may be in people’s hands.  As soon as we hear anything you will know about it.

Now, here’s a bit of good news:  16 very jolly sailors have just returned from Sheboygan, which is on the western shores of Lake Michigan.  They’re jolly because they’ve almost cleaned up in the blind sailing world championships which have just taken place. They took two golds and a silver in the three sight categories of the competition.  Well we assembled a group of them back on shore yesterday and Toby Davey began by explaining more about the championships and how the competitions are organised.

Davey

There are three sight categories, so there’s B1, B2 and B3, for those people who know about their sight categories.  And it goes on the level of eyesight of the helmsperson.  So in the championships there’s three different divisions.  And the makeup on board the boat is that there’s a visually-impaired helmsperson; a visually-impaired mainsheet trimmer – so that’s trimming the main sail, the big sail on the boat; there’s a sighted crew who looks after the fore sail – the jib – and there’s also a sighted tactician.  And the sighted tactician is purely there to give verbal information to the crew, they’re not allowed to touch anything on board the boat, so if they go for a sheet, a rope, or they touch the helm we have to do a penalty turn.  But the tactician is there to give tactical information, paint the picture of where we are on the race course and it’s always sort of working as a team as well – the four people in each boat really have to work as a team, communication is really key.

White

Let me bring in Lucy Hodges, who was part of the B2 team, which means that members do actually have some sight.  Now your team rather swept the board didn’t it.

Hodges

Yeah all clear wins.  It was a good battle with USA and Canada seeing both teams improve but there was some new sailors on board both USA and Canada.  But we had good fun going up against them but just speed on the day and really good tactics from Ben Hazledene and good crew work brought us out on top each time.

White

And what are good tactics and are there tactics that have anything to do with visual-impairment or are these simply good sailing tactics full stop?

Hodges

Depends on the day.  There was one particular day where I had to put my trust in Ben.  Being on the helm you’re feeling the breeze and it was a really shifty day, shifts of 20 degrees, that’s the wind shifting from left to right along the race track.  And he could see the breeze coming in and I just had to hold the tiller really steadily because I had no feel in the breeze at all.  And he spoke to me and said you’ll feel the cold breeze and then we’ll feel the warm breeze, that’s the warm breeze that’s going to catch us, it won’t catch Canada, we’ll be off and we’ll be round the mark first.  Had to wait literally probably two to three minutes, felt the cold breeze, felt the warm breeze and we were off round the top mark first.

White

So you needed a lot of accuracy from him in order to know what you actually have to look out for, feel out for as it were.

Hodges

Yes especially in those circumstances when it isn’t constant breeze, when it’s constant breeze then you’re more comfortable, you’re in your zone just helming as a visually-impaired.  But Ben’s brand new, he’s only 20, brand new to VI sailing this year.  He jumped in a dinghy with me, we got on so well both on and off the water and a partnership was formed between the two of us.

White

And you’re a bit of a Jill of all trades aren’t you because didn’t you do the video as well?

Hodges

I’m Commodore of GBR Blind Sailing so run the whole programme, the training programme, the sponsorship programme, the press releases, so unfortunately yeah.

White

Now as I explained the B2s do have some sight but there are also a number of competitors who are either totally blind or who’ve got very little sight at all, of whom Sharon Grennan is one.  And I think your races – you may not have won but your competition was perhaps the closest, the most exciting.

Grennan

Well we got silver overall in our group.  All of the races were really, really close.  Different teams won different races.  I think we won six races outright and got a real mixed bag of results otherwise.

White

So did it go right down to the wire as it were?

Grennan

Yes it did.  We started off the first couple of days, we were getting sort of third, fourth place, we had a couple of really good days of sailing, bit more wind, sort of slight waves and we just sailed much better in those conditions and we really pulled it back, caught up to the leading American team.  And at the end of the fifth day of racing we were sort of joint first.

White

So you thought you were really in with a chance?

Grennan

Yes, had everything to play for in the last day of racing.  And that was the day that they had very, very shifty wind conditions and the US team just sailed better than us…

White

Squeaked ahead.

Grennan

… that day.

White

Now you are also a helmsman for your team and you have only I think got light perception.  Now Lucy touched on this, on the methods, but for you just explain how can you actually steer?

Grennan

Well in sailing you’re trying to use the wind, the pressure of the wind over the sails, to make the boat go forward.  So it does depend a lot on you feeling which direction the wind’s coming from and then adjusting the way you steer and the sail position…

White

How do you know the sail position, is that information you’re getting or do you feel it?

Grennan

On these bigger boats you have to communicate with the other members of the crew and say – okay are you pulling in the main sail as much as you can – and when you know the sails are sort of pulled in and you’re steering on the correct course that should give you the maximum power to go forward in that direction.

White

What about special equipment because I can remember on this programme doing pieces about the kind of equipment that’s around, which will give you auditory signals about which way to go, do you use any of that?

Grennan

Not really, not in fleet racing when you’ve got a mixed sighted and visually-impaired crew.  It’s very much down to team work and communication.  So as the person steering the boat I’m relying heavily on communication with the tactician and also communication with the people controlling the sails.

Hodges

I think the big bit Sharon’s missing out is the true thing that we all use is it may not be technology but our body is the biggest part of the technology, feeling the boat through our bottoms is what I teach all the kids, feel through your bottom, and you can feel the speed of the boat, you can feel the weight of where people’s body movements are.  So we may not use technology but the key bits of our body become the technology that we use to sail.

White

Toby?

Davey

Yeah because you can certainly feel when the boat’s not going so well and you feel – are we going as fast as we really should be – you can feel it when it’s a bit sluggish and you just think okay well I’ll just ease a little bit of a traveller or ease the main sheet or whatever and then you can feel the boat really pick up.  And you do that mainly through feel, it’s all done through feel.

White

I’ve been sailing.  I got very wet, I got very cold, I can’t quite see what the joy of it is.  Lucy, what is it that you get out of it?

Hodges

As a youngster when I started at 16 it was the best feeling of freedom.  I couldn’t drive a car, I learnt that quite quickly, but I can drive a boat and I can drive a boat fast, slow, medium, round a race track with my friends or with the other blind sailors – thoroughly enjoyed it, it’s freedom on the water that you can’t experience anywhere else in life.

Grennan

I love the outdoor active sports and for me it gives me a great sense of freedom but also it’s the camaraderie of sharing a sport that I enjoy with other people, whether they’re blind or sighted.

Davey

I agree with Lucy in many ways, it is freedom but it’s also being part of a team, it’s being able to race, to do something that you can do on your own or you can do with other people, it’s that sort of sharing that experience and racing and winning.

White

Toby Davey ending that conversation.  And let’s add our congratulations to Toby, Lucy Hodges, Sharon Grennan and indeed the rest of the Great Britain squad. 

You can find out more about the world championships on our website, from where you can also download the podcast for tonight’s programme and sign up for others.  You can call our Action Line on 0800 044044 for 24 hours after this programme.  You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, or click on contact us on our website that’s:  www.bbc.co.uk/intouch.

From me, Peter White, producer Cheryl Gabriel and the team, goodbye.