After a four-year hiatus, an adapted sailing clinic took to the Hudson River Wednesday afternoon off Nyack.

The event, led by Helen Hayes Hospital in partnership with the Nyack Boat Club, allowed 18 people with varying disabilities to learn the ropes about sailing.

Therapists and volunteers were there to help, too.

"It's really an amazing feeling,” said Maria Bournias from Tenafly New Jersey. She was born with spina bifida and is fighting Stage 4 cancer. "It's an opportunity that I think a lot of abled body people don't get to experience let alone people with disabilities and stuff. And the challenges of getting in and out of the boat, They kind of have you covered, so there's no fear. There's just a way to kind of just enjoy being out on the water."

Other factors impacted the clinic before the COVID pause.

"So in 2018, I think it was high winds that kept us off the water. In 2019, thunderstorms kept us off the water. Then COVID kept us off the water. Then funding kept us off the water,” said Peter Gagliardo, with Helen Hayes. “But we're here."

News 12 is told that before the pandemic, the event had been held for more than a dozen years.