Welcome to the Autism on the Water Crowdfunding page. My name is Murray MacDonald, I am a young man with autism based in Edinburgh in Scotland and spend much of my time sailing and yacht racing in the beautiful areas of Scotland and abroad.

I first set up Autism on the Water (AOTW) in November 2016 as an fundraising campaign to raise money to take part in the Sonar world championships, however after a bit of research and work, it became an awareness campaign and from Day 1 it has really taken off. My aim is to raise awareness of autism through sailing but mainly in the yacht racing circuit. For me as an autistic individual, sailing has helped me with three key skills that autistic people can really struggle with, confidence, problem solving and social skills. Those are skills I developed through my love of sailing. The planning of AOTW took sometime to actually build but I eventually decided I wanted to give something back to other people with autism old or young and show and encourage them to take up sailing and see the benefits it can bring to each others lives.

I never began to imagine how much of a popular campaign this project would become. Our first year was a roaring success with an unbelievable amount of support from sponsors and donations, to yacht associations and local businesses who all together helped me to drive my campaign forward and get the word out. We are extremely grateful to everyone who has helped us get AOTW to the level it has got too.

After an excellent first year, we aim to make this year 100% better and indeed, 2018 has already got off to a fantastic start, I was in Hong Kong for a month in January where I was volunteering for the Volvo Ocean Race. The event gave me the chance to spread the word about AOTW, I hosted talks and seminars and worked alongside another charity to take 5 young men with autism out for a sail. Probably a special moment was getting a special mention from VOR competitor and skipper David Witt of the yacht Scallywag who mentioned AOTW in the middle of the ocean between Hong Kong and Auckland! International stuff indeed!

Also for 2018 thanks to generousity of The Foggy Pear Company, David Sturrock Yachting and Pritchard Property Consultants and the 707 Class Association, AOTW now have their own Hunter 707 yacht which we plan to compete on the class circuits. We are also hoping to have more autism open days at sailing clubs across the UK to give autistic people the chance to try sailing before enrolling onto a sailing course. We have a big list of regattas we would like to compete at and we need help to cover our costs for this such as entry fees, Craning in and out and transport to tow the boat across the country to regatta venues. Any donation big or small is massively appreciated by us. We are not racing for glory, trophies and names in the newspaper, we are doing it to raise awareness of a spectrum that is still being fully recognized and learnt across the world and I personally feel this is a sport that can benefit the life of an autistic individual forever like it has done for me. We also want to assist in helping fund a sailing course for an autistic individual.

If you can help us, sponsor us or would like anymore information on what we do, head over to our main Facebook Page www.facebook.com/autismonthewater or feel free to drop me a message where I will be absolutely delighted to answer any questions.

We really appreciate your help in make our dreams and the dreams of other autistic people a reality.

Fair winds!

Murray MacDonald - Founder of Autism on the Water