Team WinWard

Team Members

Scott Whitman

Scott Whitman’s love of sailing and the water started early. One of his first words to come out of his mouth was “boat” when he was younger. Since then he began sailing at age 7 in the junior sailing program at the Metedeconk River Yacht Club. Every summer after that Scott continued thru the program, sailing and racing a variety of boats including the Sunfish, Blue Jay, Lightning, Laser, collegiate 420, Tec Dingy, Flying Scott, and various auxiliaries. Scott has excelled and won awards on the racing scene in both local and international regattas. Scott continued sailing for Northeastern University and was the team president. Scott has always been active in various organizations, and was also an avid skier and enjoyed mountain biking, and photography.

While at Northeastern University Scott took full advantage of their cooperative program and worked on high tech engineering design projects for companies such as Philips Analytical. However while on vacation during his junior year of college Scott was paralyzed due to a swimming accident. Despite his injury Scott continued his college education by transferring to Rutgers University. Scott has graduated from Rutgers University with a mechanical engineering degree. He has also been appointed as a commissioner on the New Jersey spinal cord commission and has served as vice chair on the commission.

During the winter of 2005 Betsey Allison head coach of the US Disabled Sailing Team and also a good friend of the family and member of our yacht club approached Scott about sailing a new double hand boat called the Skud 18. Scott jumped at the chance to start sailing again. In the spring of 2006 the first Skud 18s where delivered to Newport RI. The Skud proved to be the fast and technical boat Scott hoped it would be, challenging him to push its limits on the race course. Scott along with his crew Julia Dorsett have now set their goals on representing the USA at the Paralympics in Beijing 2008 in the Skud 18 class. Scott and Julia won the Rolex Miami OCR this passed winter and are currently ranked #1 on the US Paralympics Sailing Team.

 

Julia Dorsett

Julia, a Paralympian in the 2004 summer games in Greece has always been an avid athlete. During high school she enjoyed playing varsity lacrosse, field hockey and basketball and in the summer months would sail, water ski and windsurf. The winter was another playground and for much of her youth Julia would take on the challenges that surrounded being a counselor at Sugarloaf Ski Camp in Maine. But after a car accident during her freshman year at Ithaca College left her paralyzed, wheelchair tennis helped her find her way back into sports. After graduating Julia climbed the International Tennis Federation singles ranking system and in 2003 was 14th in the world. She holds several wheelchair tennis titles, including the Quickie US Open and PTR/ROHO Championships. And was a proud member of the 2004 World Team Cup in New Zealand.

After retiring from tennis, Julia was able to have more time to sail and would regularly volunteer at Shake-a-Leg Miami were she would frequently run into Betsy Allison, head coach of the US Disabled Sailing Team. Betsy asked Julie if she would like to be crew for a new and exciting Paralympic class and with a “yes” that was the start of Team Metedeconk.

“As a Paralympian I know how it feels to represent your country as one of the best in your sport and to have that feeling again is what truly motivates me. To be part of the Paralympic experience again in another sport that I love would be an amazing accomplishment.”