Uffa Fox,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(15 January 1898 – 26 October 1972) was an English boat designer and sailing enthusiast, responsible for a number of innovations in boat design. Not afraid of courting controversy or causing offense, he is remembered for his eccentric behaviour and pithy quotes, as much as for his original boat designs.

Life

Fox was born on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

and was raised in

East Cowes East Cowes is a town and civil parish in the north of the Isle of Wight, on the east bank of the River Medina, next to its west bank neighbour Cowes. The two towns are connected by the Cowes Floating Bridge, a chain ferry operated by the Isle ...

. He lived for a while in

Puckaster Puckaster is a hamlet on the Isle of Wight, England. Puckaster is on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight, south of Niton , between St. Catherine's Point and Binnel. History Puckaster has historical significance. Some have tried to identify ...

on the Isle of Wight. In July 1921, Fox and a crew of nine

sea scouts Sea Scouts are a part of the Scout movement, with a particular emphasis on boating and other water-based activities on the sea, rivers or lakes (canoeing, rafting, scuba, sailboarding). Sea Scouts can provide a chance to sail, cruise on boats, ...

departed for the western Solent in a open whaler under the parental expectation that they were on a camping/sailing trip. He decided to extend the itinerary up the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

towards Paris. In seven days, they traveled within 70 kilometers of the city when they turned around to return another five days later. After being met by the coast guard as presumed castaways, Fox was relieved of his role in the sea scouts. He was the subject of '' This Is Your Life'' in January 1963 when he was surprised by

Eamonn Andrews Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ A ...

at the

Colston Hall Bristol Beacon, previously known as Colston Hall, is a concert hall and Grade II listed building on Colston Street, Bristol, England. It is owned by Bristol City Council. Since 2011, management of the hall has been the direct responsibility of ...

in Bristol. He was also among the crew of the Typhoon, an account of which was written and published by William Washburn Nutting in ''In the Track of Typhoon'' (1922). Fox joined the crew in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

for her transatlantic return via

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, and the

Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...

into

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He was a founding participant in the 1950s annual sea-side

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

match on Bramble Bank in the central

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay t ...

. Fox died in October 1972.

Work

Fox was responsible for innovations in

dinghy sailing Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls: * the sails * the foils (i.e. the daggerboard or centreboard and rudder and sometimes lifting foils as found on the Moth) * the trim (forward/rear angle ...

that enhanced the popularity of the sport. His designs introduced planing hulls and trapezing to dinghy racing.

Sailboat racing

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from El ...

and Fox became friends in 1949 and raced together frequently at

Cowes Week Cowes Week ( ) is one of the longest-running regular regattas in the world. With 40 daily sailing races, up to 1,000 boats, and 8,000 competitors ranging from Olympic and world-class professionals to weekend sailors, it is the largest saili ...

aboard Fox's Dragon "''Fresh Breeze''" or the Duke's 'Royal' Dragon "''Bluebottle''". He also took the Royal children sailing at

Cowes Cowes () is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina, facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east bank. The two towns are linked by the Cowes Floa ...

. Philip said of Fox in a foreword to his biography, “His life was one long campaign for the freedom of the human spirit and against the foolish, the stupid and the self-important, the whole conducted with a cheerful breeziness that disarmed all but the hardest of cases.”

Boat design

About 1943 he designed a 27-foot

lifeboat Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen ...

to be dropped from

Vickers Warwick The Vickers Warwick was a multi-purpose twin-engined British aircraft developed and operated during the Second World War. In line with the naming convention followed by other RAF heavy bombers of the era, it was named after a British city or ...

aircraft when rescuing downed aircrew or mariners; its deficiencies led to the more sturdy American

A-1 lifeboat The A-1 lifeboat was a powered lifeboat that was made to be dropped by fixed-wing aircraft into water to aid in air-sea rescue operations. The sturdy airborne lifeboat was to be carried by a heavy bomber specially modified to handle the external l ...

. An example of this craft and of others built and/or designed by Fox are in the collections of the Classic Boat Museum at

, Isle of Wight. These boats could be released from under the aeroplane retarded by six 32 ft diameter

parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...

s. Although initially adapted for the Warwick, the lifeboat was subsequently also carried by Air-Sea Rescue Lancasters and

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

es. The museum also holds a large collection of photographs by and about Fox. He established boat design and building businesses in the south of England. He designed many of the significant classes of boats around today, including the planing

International 14 The International 14 is a British racing sailboat, crewed by two sailors. The class was established in 1928. The boat is a developmental sailing class and so the design rules and the boats themselves have changed dramatically over time to keep ...

, the Foxhound, the Foxcub and Super Foxcub, the

Flying Fifteen The Flying Fifteen is a British sailboat that was designed by Uffa Fox as a one design racer and first built in 1948.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 106-107. Houghton Mifflin Compan ...

, the Flying Ten, the

National 12 The National 12 is a two-person, two-sail, twelve-foot (3.6 metre) long sailing dinghy. They are sailed extensively in the UK. The class was started in 1936 by the Royal Yachting Association as an alternative to the more expensive International 14s ...

, the National 18, the

Albacore The albacore (''Thunnus alalunga''), known also as the longfin tuna, is a species of tuna of the order Perciformes. It is found in temperate and tropical waters across the globe in the epipelagic and mesopelagic zones. There are six distinct sto ...

, the

Firefly The Lampyridae are a family of elateroid beetles with more than 2,000 described species, many of which are light-emitting. They are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glowworms for their conspicuous production ...

, the

Javelin A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon, but today predominantly for sport. The javelin is almost always thrown by hand, unlike the sling, bow, and crossbow, which launch projectiles with th ...

, the Pegasus Dinghy, the Jollyboat and the

Day Sailer A daysailer, day sailer, or dayboat is a small sailboat with or without sleeping accommodations but which is larger than a dinghy. Dayboats can be monohull or multihull, and are typically trailer-able. Many dayboats have a small cabin or "cud ...

. Many of his designs exploited the wartime developments of moulded

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

, extruded aluminium, Tufnol etc. In addition to dinghies, he designed several keelboats all loosely based on the same concept as the flying fifteen, with separate fin keel and rudder. They were very lightweight compared with other boats of the era. '' Huff of Arklow'' for Douglas Heard was 30'-0" on the waterline and ''Flying Fox'' for Fred Brownlee was 35'-0" waterline length. Uffa Fox designed the

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...

rowboat, used by

John Fairfax John Fairfax (24 October 1804 – 16 June 1877) was an English-born journalist, company director, politician, librarian and newspaper owner, known for the incorporation of the major newspapers of modern-day Australia. Early life Fairfax was bo ...

for the first solo-rowing expedition across the Atlantic Ocean in 1969. The Britannia was described as "the

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

of rowboats, made of

mahogany Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...

." It was self-righting, self-bailing and partly covered. He also designed '' Britannia II'', used by Fairfax and Sylvia Cook to row across the Pacific Ocean in 1971 through 1972.

References

External links

Uffa Fox Website A picture of an Airborne Lifeboat being released
*LIFE magazin
photos
of Fox and the

Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh in Scotland, was a substantive title that has been created three times since 1726 for members of the British royal family. It does not include any territorial landholdings and does not produc ...

St. Mildred's Churchyard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Uffa 1898 births 1972 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Boat and ship designers English male sailors (sport) People from Cowes British yacht designers