Charting a course against the odds

Marblehead mariner is Paralympic pioneer

Maureen McKinnon-Tucker of Marblehead is the first woman to represent the United States in sailing at the Paralympics. (Photos by David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)

Maureen McKinnon-Tucker is a pioneer, the first woman to earn a spot on the US Disabled Sailing Team and the first woman to represent this country in the Paralympic Games.

This past week's Paralympic competition just outside Beijing was the culmination of an extraordinary journey for the 43-year-old Marblehead resident, who terms the last six months the most trying of her life.

In January, shortly after she qualified for the Paralympics, McKinnon-Tucker's 2-year-old son, Trent, was diagnosed with brain cancer. She received a call from Trent's doctor while training at a regatta in Miami.

"I left the regatta and took the [flight] back home. The very next day, at 6 a.m., doctors at Mass General Hospital removed a malignant tumor from Trent's brain," she recalled. "The scariest part wasn't knowing he had the tumor or the surgery, it was signing the paperwork of side effects that were likely when opening up the little kid's brain."

It reminded her of a conversation she'd had with her own doctor in 1992, upon returning from a vacation in Rockland, Maine, with her husband, Dan, where she'd fallen off a 13-foot sea wall, leaving her paralyzed from the hips down.

"Some of what we went through - the surprise and the shock - was similar to when I broke my back and became paralyzed. I remembered accepting that life was not going to be perfect, sunny days with picket fences," said McKinnon-Tucker, who first began sailing competitively in her 20s.

"It wasn't until several years after I broke my back and tried out therapeutic sailing programs that I really got into sailing again," she said.That was in 2002.

Last Monday, McKinnon-Tucker and her sailing partner, Nick Scandone, navigated their two-person SKUD 18 - a double-handed, performance dinghy - on the first day of competition in the 13th Paralympic Sailing Regatta in QingDao, China. It is the same site where the sailing competitions for the recent Summer Olympic Games were held. The SKUD 18 competition, held for the first time this year, requires that a woman be on board the dinghy.

Through the first two days of competi tion, and five of the 11 scheduled races, the McKinnon-Tucker/Scandone tandem was in the lead. The competition was scheduled to conclude yesterday.

This year, more than 4,000 athletes from 150 nations will compete in the Paralympics, the top international competition for athletes with physical and mental disabilities. That includes McKinnon-Tucker's former sailing partner, Tim Angle, also of Marblehead, competing in a separate class, in his boat, the Sonar.

In 2004, McKinnon-Tucker failed to qualify for the Paralympics. Then last fall, after becoming the first woman to qualify at the team trials in Newport, R.I., she got news of her son's illness.

By late January, Trent's recovery was going well and McKinnon-Tucker continued her demanding schedule. In addition to training, working fulltime as the adaptive sailing coordinator at the Piers Park Sailing Center in East Boston, and caring for Trent and her 8-year-old daughter, Dana, she also endured many sleepless nights through her son's chemotherapy and radiation sessions.

Her coach, Betsy Alison, a five-time US Sailing Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, said she would have expected nothing less from McKinnon-Tucker than to persist and prevail.

"We've only ever had two disciplines at the Paralympics before now that have both been male-dominated," said Alison, head coach of Paralypmic sailing team. "The new addition of SKUD 18 has opened the door for women to sail. It's a huge honor to be the first woman to compete in the Paralympics, and it would be so extraordinary for her to bring back the first women's medal in sailing."

McKinnon-Tucker kept training mostly for her teammate, the 42-year-old Scandone, a former US Sailing Rolex Yachtsman of the Year who has Lou Gehrig's Disease, a progressive disorder. He may not get another chance to compete in the Paralympics.

"We're excited for her and Nick. Maureen's hard work during last year, especially with her family issues with Trent, has paid off. She's come through with flying colors," said Alison.

And so has Trent.

Eight months later, despite side effects that include paralysis of his legs that McKinnon-Tucker hopes will be temporary, a recovering Trent is persevering - just as his mother did.

"He is the same funny, joking guy he always was," she said.

For complete information on the competition, go to ussailing.org.