Ian Donaldson works across coaching, accessibility and adaptive surfing at Lost Shore through his roles with the surf park and the nonprofit Inclusive Surfing Scotland. A former surf coach and primary school teacher, Donaldson helps run one-on-one and group surf sessions for people with physical and developmental disabilities, including blind surfers, people with cerebral palsy and adults with learning difficulties.
In this interview with WavePoolMag, Donaldson discussed how wave pools can reduce barriers to surfing by providing predictable conditions and accessible infrastructure that are often unavailable at natural beaches in Scotland. He also outlines the operational realities of running an adaptive surf program, including equipment needs, volunteer coordination and grant funding challenges. Donaldson said Lost Shore’s partnership model has allowed Inclusive Surfing Scotland to expand adaptive surfing opportunities year-round.
What is it that you do here at Lost Shore? And how long have you been here?
So I’ve been involved with Lost Shore in some capacity for like a year prior to opening. As Lost Shore was getting set up, I was kind of setting up a charity called Inclusive Surfing Scotland. We run adaptive surf both at the beach and now primarily at Lost Shore. That is not something that I’m able to live off. I’m getting paid for ten hours a week. So then I also work for a couple of days a week, coaching for Lost Shore. And then I have also been working as the diversity and inclusion manager for Lost Shore for one day a week. But that is being cut.
It’s like in any sort of startup. There’s a lot more outgoings for Lost Shore than they were hoping for. And then with a quieter winter, some of these things that they would love to keep on, unfortunately, have been cut. So yeah, still involved in two capacities at Lost Shore, both as a coach for Lost Shore and then with Inclusive Surfing Scotland as their adaptive surf partner.
Can you walk us through how the Inclusive Surfing Scotland adaptive surf program works here?
Yeah. I worked for a surf school once upon a time. They’re called Long Line Surf School. They work at a beach called Benone. He said, “I just wish we’d called ourselves Benone Surf School.” So his advice was just name it what it is. I did consider Adaptive Surfing Scotland, but that would abbreviate to ASS. So I went for Inclusive Surfing Scotland. Most of the sessions we run here are one-to-one. We work with people with a whole range of disabilities and as a result, each session will look somewhat different. People can get in touch through word of mouth, through our website or socials, or through Lost Shore. If people get in touch with Lost Shore, they then pass them to us. When they were setting up, they decided to try and partner with someone, which turned out to be Inclusive Surfing Scotland.
We were just setting up at the right time. Then we also run some group sessions. Sometimes they can be one-off group sessions. We host several groups. One is Dwarf Sports Scotland, so people with dwarfism from all across Scotland, or achondroplasia as some people prefer. We’ve got a group from VICTA, which is people with visual impairments or blind. And then a group with Fairway Fife, which is adults with some learning difficulties. Last year, we ran a sort of pilot program, but that was a mixture of sessions at the beach and sessions at Lost Shore. For group sessions, we need to find funding because we’re obviously taking a big part of the pool, whereas the one-to-one stuff we can kind of sneak in and around other lessons that are going on.
How do you handle the equipment to suit each person’s adaptive needs?
We have a whole range of different equipment that we can use. We have different boards. We have a couple of different prone boards that have handles with a chest riser. That would be more for people surfing on the reef. And then we’re just about to get delivery in the next couple of days of big nine-foot and eight-foot boards with handles. We’ve got adapted wetsuits with zips in arms and legs for people who maybe struggle to get into a wetsuit and if they don’t have as much control over their limbs. Helmets. Safety equipment.
For getting funding for your program, is it through private donations?
Primarily, it’s been grant funding to date. People generally do pay for sessions, but we offer a variable pricing model. There are different prices that people can pay depending on their economic realities for the same session. So we get some income through there, some through private donations, but to date, it’s primarily been grant funding. It’s something that we want to diversify because with grant funding, you spend a lot of time writing grant applications. Quite often, it will run for a year or two years, and then you won’t be eligible for that grant again. So you’re always chasing your tail a little bit with grant funding.
People are coming out feeling happy, feeling tired, feeling that they’ve tried something that they maybe didn’t think they’d be able to do. There’s been a lot of research that shows those effects can last beyond the immediate aftermath.
Iain Donaldson
Walk us through the physics of it. You mentioned getting some boards. Do you have a certain coaching technique depending on ability?
Yeah. I would say every session is pretty different. For context, my background, I’ve done a lot of work as a surf coach. I also worked for another UK-based charity called The Wave Project, which is primarily a mental health charity. So I worked with kids who’d experienced anxiety, trauma, and social isolation. And then I also did quite a lot of coaching for Long Line, who run adaptive surfing in Northern Ireland with another charity called the Mae Murray Foundation. Personally, I’m a primary school teacher and I’ve also done a lot of work with kids with autism. So my whole background has kind of come together quite well. Every session will be different. For example, we’ve had some blind surfers. That will be very much kneeling beside the board and allowing the surfer to feel the board. Chatting with them through exactly what it feels like. The underside, the fins, and how to best get onto the board. Everything is taken a little bit slower.
Then, in the water, it was a girl, Felicity. She would walk out so far through the waves and then I would push her out beyond them. There’s a lot of communication needed so that I can say when a wave is coming, so she can expect the splash. Then we would turn. For the first session and a half, she was primarily catching waves on her belly. Most of our sessions are supported by volunteers. We had fifty active volunteers last year. We had a volunteer catcher in the shallows and they would help slow the board down. Gradually, she got to the point where she was able to stand up. She wanted to stand. We were on a nine foot wide one hundred and forty litre board, really big, really buoyant, nice and stable. It would allow her feet not to be perfectly centered.
People reading about Inclusive Surfing Scotland, how can they support?
There’s lots of ways. Hopefully, this will help boost the profile of the charity. In the UK, about one in four people has some sort of disability. A lot of people wouldn’t be aware that surfing is something that they could come and try. If people could share and boost our profile in that way. Our capacity is also really limited at the moment. I’m part-time. We have ambitions to have lots more coaches than just me so that we’re running sessions every day. There’s a similar organisation in Wales, in the south of Wales, called Surfability. They’re not actually a charity but a community interest company. In the summer, they can have up to twelve coaches.
The ambition for us is to be able to grow our capacity so that we can deliver regular sessions at Lost Shore and regular sessions at the beach. We’d also love to visit some of the more remote areas of Scotland, particularly some of the islands, and do come and try it days. So people in those more rural communities would be able to come and try it. So boosting our profile and funding are probably the biggest things for us at the moment.
What do you see in people once they’ve had a surf lesson?
We invite every surfer who surfs with us to fill in a post-surf questionnaire. From the programme, we got evaluation and feedback from the surfers, from parents, and from the staff of the organization. In 2025, we saw a one-hundred percent improvement in mental health. People feel more resilient. People are also feeling the physical benefits. People are coming out feeling happy, feeling tired, feeling that they’ve tried something that they maybe didn’t think they’d be able to do.
There’s been a lot of research that shows those effects can last beyond the immediate aftermath. Particularly as we’re able to grow as a charity and offer people regular sessions. That impact can be felt at home well beyond the surf. It’s the physical and mental benefits that I know as a surfer myself, I feel. It’s one of the big reasons why I come back to surfing. Those feelings can maybe even be more profound for people with disabilities because they generally have much less opportunity to be physically active.
