Accessibility Statement

Last updated: June 2026

Our commitment

The Disabled Sailors Association is committed to making this website accessible to everyone, regardless of disability. We strive to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standard.

Accessibility is central to our mission — we exist to make sailing available to people of every ability, and our website should reflect that same principle.

Accessibility features

• Semantic HTML5 elements and landmark regions (nav, main, footer, section).
• A "Skip to main content" link at the top of every page for keyboard users.
• All interactive elements are keyboard-navigable and show a visible focus indicator.
• Colour contrast ratios meet or exceed the WCAG 2.1 AA minimum of 4.5:1 for body text.
• Images have descriptive alt text; decorative images are marked aria-hidden="true".
• Form fields have visible labels and are linked with for/id attributes.
• Error messages are announced via aria-live regions.
• The site is usable with the browser zoom set to 200% without loss of content.
• Animations and transitions are suppressed when the user has enabled Reduce Motion in their operating system.

Known limitations

We are an all-volunteer charity. While we aim for full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, you may encounter the following limitations:

• Some older photographs embedded in pages may have limited alt text descriptions. We are working to improve these.
• Third-party content (such as embedded video or external links) may not fully meet our accessibility standards.

Technical approach

This website is built with standards-based HTML and CSS and a small amount of vanilla JavaScript — there are no JavaScript frameworks or heavy third-party dependencies. All page content and navigation links are present in the HTML itself, so the information remains readable if scripts fail to load. A few interactive features — the mobile navigation menu, dropdown sub-menus and the sailing calendar — do rely on JavaScript to operate.

Feedback and contact

We welcome your feedback on accessibility. If you encounter a barrier or would like content in an alternative format, please contact us:

• Email: office@disabledsailing.org
• Phone: +44 7854 482402

We aim to respond to accessibility queries within five working days.

Enforcement

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) at equalityadvisoryservice.com.