Thousands of multiple sclerosis researchers and physicians are traveling to Boston this week for the MSBoston2014 convention. But a 67-foot-long, steel-hulled sailboat, with a crew that included six people living with multiple sclerosis, got here first.
Oceans of Hope, which set off from Copenhagen on June 15, sailed into Boston Harbor Monday afternoon and docked at Rowe’s Wharf after visiting several European ports, the Madeira Islands off the coast of Africa, and Bermuda. Its trans-Atlantic crossing included four days in a storm, with the crew members working together to keep the yacht on course.
“There [are] no passengers here,” said Dr. Mikkel Anthonisen, the vessel’s captain. “Everybody took part in everything. We wanted to show that even though you have this disease and you have lost some capabilities, you can still achieve things and accomplish things and be part of a community.”
Anthonisen, a doctor at the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Center at University Hospital in Copenhagen, said his crew members with MS included four Danes, one Portugese citizen, and an American — Susan Strachan, founder and president of MS Cure Fund, a Boston-based nonprofit.
Their voyage was bankrolled by Biogen Idec Inc., the Cambridge biotechnology company that is a leader in MS research and sells a variety of drugs to treat the neurodegenerative disease.
Anthonisen said he and members of his crew will visit Biogen Idec and attend MSBoston2014, which gets underway Wednesday at the Hynes Convention Center. The convention is sponsored by the American and European Committees for Treatment and Research of MS.
Courtesy of www.bostonglobe.com
