Sailing after the storms

Tom Tolbert and his sailboat, the Fascination II, have pushed through their share of storms over the last 10 years.

A brain aneurysm in 1996, a stolen engine in 2004, the loss of his skipper and business partner and his federal funding, yet both the man and the boat persevered.

Tolbert’s story of overcoming a medical emergency less than 10% of people usually survive, of having to relearn rudimentary physical tasks, and then rediscovering his love of the ocean is inspiring.

He’s taken his three decades of experience at sea and put them to use, teaching the disabled how to sail in Newport Harbor.

“Probably 75% of our students have never been in charge of any apparatus,” Tolbert said. “They still haven’t been in charge of a bicycle, car, anything. This is a first for them, and seeing one of them smile is a really big deal for us.”

Tolbert says he is one of only three components needed to ensure the ship sails smoothly. Without the help of volunteer skippers from the Oasis Senior Center and funding from a local church, the Sailing Fascination project would be dead.

After all its struggles, the nonprofit hit the doldrums when Tolbert’s friend and skipper Jack Hest was unexpectedly moved to a Bakersfield nursing facility in August.

After Hest’s departure from Sailing Fascination, Tolbert began going “through that process of where am I going to find that person that is able-bodied enough to tie up and knows their way around the boat enough that I am comfortable with them and our students are not in jeopardy?”

Around the same time he was trying to figure this out, the Department of Boating and Waterways pulled its funding after supporting Sailing Fascination for eight years.

Sailing Fascination costs roughly $3,000 each year to operate, most of which goes toward maintenance costs. A slip at Basin Marina has been donated by the city of Newport Beach, and the marina provides a number of services to the group at no cost. But Tolbert still has to come up with few thousand clams to keep things afloat.

Then John Byerlein introduced Tolbert at one of the Oasis Senior Sailing Club meetings in Corona del Mar, and told the group about the situation. Now, seven to eight Oasis members rotate in as volunteer skippers aboard Fascination II, a 24-foot sloop.

“Everyone jumped up to help out when they were asked,” skipper Paul Bjorkholm said. “It was surprising. You normally don’t get that response.”

Every Tuesday they set sail in Newport Harbor where the waters are more predictable than out at sea.

Most of the student sailors lately come from the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa. And with them comes rehab therapist Cordell Porter.

The center residents are developmentally disabled, so most of the sailing is performed by Tolbert and the Oasis skippers, but the experience alone has a beneficial effect on the Fairview students.

“They are very relaxed when they get back,” Porter said. “There’s nothing they do like this.”

Most of the student sailors, like Dennis, have lived at the medical facility for most of their lives. The 56-year-old was on his third sailing trip aboard Fascination II.

“Dennis doesn’t understand the bow from the stern or any of those things,” Porter said. “But when I pick him up he says ‘boat, boat, boat.’”

KELLY STRODL may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at kelly.strodl@latimes.com.