ENDLESSLY POSSIBLE

Impossible Dream is a 58-foot catamaran designed to get disabled sailors on the salt.

- HERB MCCORMICK

I'VE SAILED MY FAIR SHARE of ocean races over the years, but the most unusual of all was the 2016 running of the Conch Republic Cup, a three-legged affair that began and finished off Key West, Florida, with a couple of 90-mile crossings of the Florida Straits to and from the north shore of Cuba. The CRC, at the time dormant for 13 years, had a colorful history owing largely to its Cuban ports of call, but aboard the 58-foot catamaran I was sailing, Impossible Dream, it wasn't the venue that made it unique. Rather, it was the dynamic crew I was sailing with, three of whom were straddling wheelchairs. Our crew included two paraplegics and a quadriplegic. I'd never before gone to sea with paralyzed mates, but it was pretty fitting that someone had crossed off the first two letters of the cat's name on the hull, with the "I" and the "m" scratched over. On Impossible Dream, everything seemed, well, possible. It was my first sail aboard the one-of-a-kind, fully accessible, "barrier-free" catamaran, but hardly my last. For the yacht has continued its stated mission of creati