Uffa Fox, 1898 to 1972. Boatbuilder, designer, writer and one of the great characters of British yachting.

Uffa Fox was born in 1898 on the Isle of Wight and grew up on Cowes waterfront. When his school days were over he began an apprenticeship with SE Saunders, boatbuilders. Even then they were engaged with high speed craft like Maple Leaf IV, which was capable of over 50 knots.

Uffa's apprenticeship lasted seven years covering boatbuilding, shipbuilding and design. At the age of 21 he set up his own boatbuilding business, acquiring an aged floating bridge which had linked Cowes to East Cowes and converting it into a workshop, drawing office and living space, with a slipway for launching into the river.

He was not quite a model citizen. Made a Scout Master by the Sea Scout Committee, he once took his Scouts across to France in the summer holidays, trying to reach Paris via the Seine, having sworn them all to secrecy. They turned back only 20 miles short. He returned a martyr to the Scouts but the devil to the parents.

Uffa was the father of the planing dinghy. Having worked on high speed power craft, he believed that if a dinghy hull were made the right shape, and her crew held her upright, she could plane over the surface. He gave his theories full rein in the International Fourteen Footer Avenger. In 57 starts in 1928 she gained 52 first places, and his were soon the most sought after designs.

During the Second World War Uffa conceived the Airborne Lifeboat, a vessel carried beneath aeroplanes and dropped by parachute to survivors of ditched aircraft. Many aircrews owed their lives to it, and for all his racing success he maintained it was his most fulfilling design.

It was Uffa's association with royalty that spread his name to the wider public. He and the Duke of Edinburgh raced together on the Dragon Bluebottle and the Flying Fifteen Coweslip. Out of the Flying Fifteen came a whole range of planing keelboats and cruiser/racers.

His last home was the Commodore's House, a 300 year old warehouse overlooking Cowes harbour with its own quay. He died in October 1972. He will be remembered not merely as a yachtsman and designer, but as a writer, philosopher and character the likes of which will never be seen again.

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