Our Lives: The Girl Who Sails with Her Breath

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The Girl Who Sails With Her Breath

The Girl Who Sails with Her Breath - Our Lives

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Hugo Fowler

Claire Hamilton

Emma Wakefield

Will Shears

Lambent Productions

Our Lives: Series 7: The Girl Who Sails with Her Breath

The Girl Who Sails with Her Breath

Series 7

BBC One - Our Lives, Series 7, The Girl Who Sails with Her Breath

A dad enables his disabled daughter to sail a boat controlled by her breath.

Natasha can’t use her arms or legs, but she’s determined to sail the Atlantic. Her dad invents a way to control a boat with her breath, and the family set out across the world.

Natasha has cerebral palsy. She can’t walk across a road on her own, but she can sail a 46 foot yacht. 

After discovering a love for sailing on an activity holiday, Natasha declared that she wanted to sail all by herself. However, despite living in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, a place famous for sailing, dad Gary and mum Amanda had never sailed – it wasn’t a world they knew. That didn’t stop Natasha for a moment.

So, her dad set out to invent a system that would enable her to control a boat by breathing in and out of a straw. Puff: the boat goes left. Sip: it goes right. Her dad’s invention means she is fully in control. But Natasha didn’t just want to sail, she wanted to do challenges. First, she sailed the Solent and then across the English Channel. Each time, her challenges got bigger and bigger. 

This film follows Natasha and her family on their biggest challenge to date, sailing the Atlantic Ocean. The family have to get a bigger boat, find a team to help them, and dad Garry has to adapt the boat for sip and puff.  

Filmed by the family, we see the highs and lows of this extraordinary crossing as they set sail across one of the biggest oceans in the world. Rough seas, 20-foot waves and a storm that could capsize the boat are just some of the obstacles the family have to overcome. But for Natasha, all these issues are nothing in comparison to the everyday challenges she faces. 

This is the story of a family determined to enable Natasha to fulfil her dreams. And it’s the story of how a young woman with cerebral palsy inspires her family to take on the challenge of a lifetime that changes them all.

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