UFFA FOX - "Nothing Scientific or rational"
One of the most interesting people to be part of Cowes history is Uffa Fox who is most famous for his yachting exploits. But there was another side to Uffa - he was a Scoutmaster at 1st Cowes Sea Scouts. In those long ago days no one was too worried about Uffa's devil-may-care attitude, even when his exploits involved teenage Scouts.
UFFA FOX
So, with a short history of 1st Cowes Sea Scouts to set the background, read about the most unbelievable Sea Scout camping trip and other insights into the life of one of Cowes' most colourful characters. There are several versions of some of the stories, compiled from different authors. And when you're reading - don't even think about Health and Safety......
Our thanks to Uffa Fox's family for permission to use the photos of Uffa.
1st Cowes Sea Scouts {Viscountess Gort's Own}
1st Cowes Sea Scouts together with Viscountess Gort
A number of interesting articles were found in the West Wight Scout archives which had been held and kept safe for many years by Mr. Bill Wendes. In the archives was an envelope entitled Cowes Sea Scout Committee Minutes 1913 – 1965 Please handle with care.
The opening pages stated: -
Cowes Sea Scout Committee was formed on the 6th. June 1913 at an Inaugural Meeting
President: Sir Archibald Orr-Ewing
Vice Presidents: Lord Penrhyn
Philip Hunloke
Mr. F.T. Power
Committee: Capt. Cowper - Chairman
Mr. J. Ratsey
Mr. B. Atkey
Mr. George Fellows
Mr. J. Minns
Lieut. Damant
Mr. A. Draper
Dr. G. Brodie
WARRANT ISSUED - April 17th 1916 (This is unusual as Warrants were only normally issued to individual persons).
This Committee was formed for the benefit of Sea Scouts only in Cowes - East Cowes and Gurnard having their own, separate Sea Scout groups.
The last recorded Meeting was on July 19th 1965 and the Committee disbanded.
Existing funds totalling £263.94 were equally divided between the three Cowes Scout Groups on June 8th 1978.
Uffa Fox - Sea Scout Leader and Eccentric!
The name Uffa Fox will be familiar to many. He was, of course the brilliant and eccentric yacht designer and builder from Cowes who died in 1972. Among the many designs that brought him fame are the ‘Flying Fifteen’ class of yachts, which can still be seen racing at many clubs throughout the world, and the airborne lifeboats of the second world war which were carried beneath the wings of bombers and parachuted down to ditched air crews.
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Prince Philip and Uffa Fox in Flyiing Fifteen, 192 "Coweslip" during Cowes Week
Airborne lifeboat about to be dropped into the water
Many of these ten-metre craft made long offshore voyages bringing ditched airmen to safety.
What is less well known is that Uffa was also a member and later the Scoutmaster of Cowes Sea Scouts. He ran the Sea Scout Troop in the same rather unconventional way as he conducted all his affairs, as these stories will show...
Uffa as a Sea Scout
The formation of the Cowes Sea Scouts by Harry and Eric White of the John Samuel White Shipyard gave Uffa and other boat-crazy young apprentices the opportunity of a lifetime, the opportunity to learn seamanship and generally mess around in boats. Uffa was in with a head start as he could already swim, row and tie most of the knots and, thanks to his father and his own basic instincts, he understood the complexity of the Solent tides and currents.Harold Lidstone, Thorneycroft's chief designer, tested them for their badges, Uffa passing at such a rate that his delighted mother was hard-pressed sewing them on in time. He was exceptionally kind to Uffa and his unruly friends and, appreciating Uffa's natural sailing ability, frequently loaned him his ten-foot rowing and sailing dinghy. On one occasion during his first summer after leaving school, Uffa and a friend capsized the boat skylarking around in a gale of wind in the Medina. No damage was done and they managed to retrieve all of the gear, clean her up and re-step the mast, but it frightened Uffa sufficiently to hammer home the necessity at all times to treat the sea with the utmost respect.
The Scouts never planned their evening rowing excursions until they reached the mouth of the Medina, and then it depended upon the tide and the weather. With the tide on the last of the ebb, someone would say `What about going down to Colwell Bay for a lemonade?’ and they would row down and quench their thirsts with a lemonade or beer, returning on the young flood; often arriving back well after dark, young limbs aching after the twenty-four-mile row. Alternatively, perhaps they would go across to Lee-on-Solent for an ice-cream.
Uffa on the "Floating Bridge" between Cowes and East Cowes
Uffa Fox's Sea Scoutmaster
Harry White was the perfect Scoutmaster. An educated man and a fine seaman, the boys {Scouts} looked up to and emulated him. Consequently, their manner and speech improved along with their seamanship, although Uffa was never to lose his broad Isle of Wight accent.
The Isle of Wight is an enchanting diamond sparkling off the southern coast of England, separated from the mainland by a strip of water some thirty miles in length which varies in width from four miles to half a mile. The area to the west near Cowes is the Solent and the Eastern part, opposite Portsmouth, is called Spithead. Sailing conditions are challenging and can be hazardous to the unwary. The general strength of the tide is four knots, and the currents strong and varied. Add a sprinkling of sandbanks, rocks, estuaries, liners in and out of Southampton Water on the twice-daily tide, cargo boats and large naval vessels to be maneuvered, and it becomes easy to grasp that a person who has learned to sail in and around the Solent has survived one of the finest testing and training grounds and is fit to up to most sailing conditions to be found anywhere in the world. The two boys were fanatically keen and took tremendous pride in their boats, which, in time, included a sailing dinghy, a rowing and sailing gib and a seven-ton cutter; and they were eternally grateful to a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron who put up £100 towards these purchases. Graduating from rowing, at which they achieved an almost machine-like precision, to sail, by degrees they extended themselves further and further into the Solent and beyond, although the smaller boys were not allowed on the very long camping trips. On Saturdays, when they were free from work at midday, they would rendezvous at the clubhouse, an old yacht store at East Cowes on loan from George Marvin and Son, with their food and camping gear, and set off for the weekend.
The initial cruise set a pattern for the many joyous trips to follow. Leaving the Medina West about, they made their way past Gurnard, Thorness and Newtown to Yarmouth, seeing their beautiful Island for the first time from a new dimension, and continued between the narrows of Hurst to Colwell Bay. Here, after beaching and tidying the boat, they sat around the campfire laughing, yarning and singing in happy exhaustion while the tea brewed and their sausages cooked. Unless it rained, the tents that accompanied them were neglected, the boys {Scouts} preferring to sleep, wrapped in a blanket, under the stars. Colwell Bay became first base. Sometimes, on the ebb when the tides were right, they would visit the lighthouse keepers at the Needles with letters and parcels of food from their wives at Cowes.
Uffa as a Sea Scoutmaster
Over a period of three or four years, Uffa exhausted the local job opportunities, and his father's patience, and spent several periods at sea. He even tried London, returning after six months at the Thames Iron Works hotly pursued by a young lady called Margaret. Mrs. Fox was not at all amused at the prospect of Margaret for a daughter-in-law, considering her far too `forward' by Island standards; this trait finally proved the young lady's downfall when she made the tactical error of tracking Uffa down on one of his Sea Scout camping holidays.Throughout military service Uffa had remained a Sea Scout, spending most of his long leaves messing around in their various boats; and when he was twenty-one he achieved one of his major ambitions the day he was appointed Scout Master. He decided there and then to create the finest sailing and rowing crew in England, and his leadership was such that he could command INSTANT OBEDIENCE. Any boy caught misbehaving or not pulling his weight felt the knotted end of a piece of rope or was excluded from their expeditions for an appropriate period of time, the latter being dreaded more than the rope's bruises.
The Scout premises later on became almost an extension of Uffa's workshop; three of the Scouts, Bill Waight, Bob Dickerson and Stan (Spike) Crews, becoming the nucleus of his business as it gradually mushroomed; and in assessing Uffa's early beginnings it is vital not to overlook the importance of the Sea Scouts as they were a connecting and intertwining thread.
The boys were overawed and mesmerized by Uffa, held in his power by a strong love-hate relationship, never knowing if he would react to a given situation with gentleness or violence. On one occasion, Uffa decided on a purge of the clubhouse setting the boys to cleaning and painting until everything shone like a new pin. Several days later Spot Smith drew an amusingly lifelike caricature of Uffa, using a stick and tar, on one of the blank walls. The boys hooted with laughter, and sat back in joyous anticipation for Uffa to join in the fun when he arrived. It was so lifelike, the hair standing on end, the large bushy eyebrows, the mouth twisted up one side and the dark staring eyes.
Uffa took one look at the sketch and stormed out. Picking up a large iron bar, with one mighty swoop he thrust it through the window frame, shattering wood and glass alike. His action stirred the boys to such a wild frenzy that, within minutes, the clubhouse was almost completely demolished. One of the former Sea Scouts said that there appeared to be some uncontrollable force within Uffa that periodically exploded and unsettled the boys, making them temporarily as bereft of reason as he was.
To Foreign Waters
In July 1921, Uffa decided that it was time for the Sea Scouts to undertake a foreign cruise, but decided against telling the Scouts’ parents in case they disapproved. The party of ten, including eight boys aged between fourteen and eighteen, set off westwards on the tide from Cowes in the Scouts’ 30ft. 6-inch open whaleboat which had once belonged to the whaler ‘Valhalla’. The vessel had a beam of only 5ft. 6 inches and was rigged with a dipping lugsail. The crew was divided into three watches, lookout, mainsheet man and bailer, for being a completely open boat; she shipped a considerable amount of water. Uffa took the helm most of the time and the off duty watches got what sleep they could, huddled in the bottom of the boat under oilskins. After nearly forty hours at sea, during which time the Sea Scouts had been obliged to row with fifteen-foot long oars for over eight hours, they finally sailed into Le Havre.
The intention was to try and reach Paris, so the following evening they set off again with the flood tide up the Seine. When the tide turned against them, they hauled the boat ashore and slept by the side of her. They managed to get a tow the next day and eventually reached Mantes some seventy kilometres below Paris, but with time running out they realised that they would have to turn back without reaching their goal. On the return passage they were more fortunate and secured a tow nearly all the way back to Le Havre. On entering the Tancarville Canal a French Official asked to see the ship’s papers, but as they had neither registration documents nor passports, Uffa merely signed the book ‘Cowes Sea Scouts’.
The return Channel crossing was not much easier than the outward passage, as again they had to row for seven hours whilst they were becalmed. Then the wind got up and they were hit by a squall. After two days at sea the boat was finally beached at Ventnor, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, it not being possible to make Cowes that night due to adverse tides. The crew slept on the beach, except for two of the older boys who had to be at work the next morning. They set out at midnight to walk, barefooted, (Uffa had forbidden shoes on the expedition to save weight) the fifteen miles back to Cowes.
On his return to Cowes, Uffa was hauled before the local Sea Scout Committee as some of the parents had complained saying that he had placed the boys’ lives in jeopardy. A short while later it was suggested that Uffa might like to direct his energies elsewhere than towards the Cowes Sea Scouts. Can you imagine the uproar there would be today if a Scout Leader were to undertake a voyage half so daring? It is probably just as well that we have our Authorisation scheme and activities are properly controlled and supervised.
However, the older members of 2nd Cowes remember Uffa Fox with affection. Cowes Sea Scouts and 1st East Cowes Sea Scouts, those Groups being the direct descendents of the ‘Cowes Sea Scouts’ of Uffa’s day, some of us having had the privilege of attending his funeral service at Cowes in 1972. His autobiographies ‘Joys of Life’ and ‘More Joys of Life’, together with the biography by his niece, June Dixon, entitled ‘Uffa Fox - A Personal Biography’ make excellent reading.
Credit: John Banks Group Scout Leader 2nd Cowes (St. Mary’s) Sea Scouts
Some images taken before the Paris trip
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France Trip Images (details not known)
Uffa Fox - Scoutmaster and Eccentric
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Typhoon
An interesting story of Uffa and the crew in the photograph above came to light when we had a display at Newport for Heritage Week in 2006. A visitor from the mainland attended named Michael Hookey. He pointed out that one of the Sea Scouts (third from the left in the front row) was his Uncle, Charles Hookey. He told me a story of how his Uncle loved sailing and unfortunately died in 1924 following a disastrous sailing expedition to America. Research on the internet provided the following story: - In the Autumn of 1920, Nutting and some friends conceived the idea of sailing a William Atkin gaff-ketch, “Typhoon” across the Atlantic to England in time for the Cowes Week races and the Harmsworth Cup Races. During the Cowes festivities, Nutting's engaging personality created a warm welcome from British yachtsmen and many friendships were begun with members of the Royal Cruising Club, including the famed Claud Worth, Tom Ratsey and the Earl of Dunraven, owner of the America's Cup challenger, “Valkynes”.
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Typhoon
All the Troop visiting Typhoon to say goodbye to Uffa and Charles
On August 31, Nutting sailed Typhoon back to the United States with a crew that included a young Sea Scout Master named Uffa Fox, who was to become a renowned British naval architect. The return trip was made via the Azores and the West Indies, and a boisterous one it was. The “Typhoon” was a shambles of wreckage and out of food and water by the time it reached Gravesend Bay.
In actual fact Uffa recruited more than one Sea Scout to help on the trip to America. The only drawback was that they had to make their own way back to England. Unfortunately, this meant Charles had to “work his passage” back on a commercial ship during which he became ill. Probably this was due to the disastrous trip out and the hard work of actually working his way back to England. He apparently never fully recovered and died of pneumonia less than two years after the trip.
A second viewpoint:
Extracts from “Uffa Fox – A personal biography” by June Dixon
Typhoon
In the summer of 1920 Bill Nutting, a member of the staff of the New York magazine Motor Boat, sailed his thirty-five-foot waterline ketch Typhoon into Cowes from Nova Scotia. Crossing the Atlantic in a small boat was a rarity in those days, and Uffa and the Sea Scouts were yearning to get aboard to see her and the crew. It was not until the end of August, when they heard that Typhoon needed two more to make up her complement for the voyage home via the trades to New York, that an excuse presented itself. Uffa wished to be one and Charles Hookey, an eighteen-year-old Patrol Leader, the other; so, whaleboat loaded to the gunwales with Sea Scouts, they luffed alongside Typhoon and presented themselves.
Bill Nutting had seen and admired the boys in the Hamble River the day before, and in his book no excuse was required to come aboard other than a love of the sea. He was overtly impressed with their precision and the way they brought the whaleboat in with the snap and skill of an American Coast Guard crew, and delighted in the enthusiasm with which they examined every last detail of Typhoon's equipment.
When Uffa broke the news to his family that he planned to sail to America aboard Typhoon all hell broke loose. His father, with his vast knowledge of the sea, begged him to abandon the idea for two important reasons. In the first place he considered Typhoon an unbalanced boat with a hollow weak bow and broad stern, and secondly, bearing in mind that they planned to cruise down the French and Spanish coasts and the Azores before crossing the Atlantic, they might well run slap into the equinoctial gales. He believed the project was tantamount to suicide, and said so in no-uncertain terms. The altercation was fiery and hurtful, and when Uffa rejected his father's advice the breach was so grave that he knew he could expect little help from that quarter should he run into trouble.
Uffa's gear was at Hamble aboard his favourite schooner, Black Rose, in which he had been crewing; so he quickly organized his galley slaves to accompany him in the whaler the fourteen miles there and back, returning to Typhoon at three in the morning to be met by Bill Nutting with welcoming bowls of hot soup. Three hours later Uffa crept into his home to collect the remainder of his bits and pieces, for they were due to sail on the noonday tide.
There was a small crowd of well-wishers to bid farewell as Typhoon set sail on the last day of August, not least of all the Cowes Sea Scouts who turned out in force to cheer their leader on his way.
William Washburn Nutting was a popular figure, and made many friends during Typhoon's brief sojourn in Solent waters. His meeting with one man in particular - Claude Worth, Vice President of the Royal Cruising Club and author of Yacht Cruising - was to have far-reaching effects. Impressed by the whole concept and range of services offered by the Royal Cruising Club, Bill Nutting had a vision of forming a similar body in America. On his return to the States, a meeting was set up at `Beefsteak Joe's' in Greenwich Village, and from this early acorn, the Cruising Club of America grew.
Typhoon's crew comprised Bill Nutting and Jim Dorset from America, and Charles and Uffa from Cowes. After cruising for six weeks along the French and Spanish coasts and across the Bay of Biscay to the Azores, they took Manson Dillaway, an Admiralty lawyer from Boston, aboard at Ponta Delgada, bringing their number up to five.
Despite the overwhelming personal kindness shown by the people of Ponta Delgada they were of little help when it came to Victualling, as there was an acute shortage of food in the Azores, with soldiers on every ship and along the quays keeping watch lest food be passed between the vessels. Consequently, with the concentrated effort required to obtain food and smuggle it aboard, and the general maintenance needed to withstand the rigours of the days ahead, they were not equipped to set sail for New York until the night of 19 October.
It was more or less plain sailing until 2 November when they were hit by a squall full of heavy rain, which practically knocked Typhoon over on her beam-ends even though the mainsail was half down, and for some days, the squalls followed in rapid succession, slowing them down considerably. By 12 November, they had reached an area where heavy gales could be anticipated in the month of November, added to which most of the good food had been eaten.
They were down to making all sorts of weird cakes and unleavened bread with the remaining flour, but could no longer use the coal stove which had kept the ship warm and sweet below, and the motion was so violent that they had to cook by primus in gimbals with the cook lashed to the job.
On 18 November, they were hit by a fierce squall, and for more than two hours Typhoon, with only her jib, had all the sail she could stagger under. The wind blew with great force from the west, then southwest, then north and finally settled into a hard north-easter. The rapidly growing seas were confused and agitated, the shifting winds having blown hard enough to cause cross-seas.
Towards sunset, the glass started to rise, and by morning, the breaking seas gradually became less formidable; and, because it had turned so cold, they re-lit the stove in an attempt to dry out and warm Typhoon.
The moderate weather proved but a breathing spell between gales, for 16 November came in with a staggeringly hard blow from the east, even stronger than the previous one; so, anticipating the worst, they put extra lashings on the dinghy, stowed sail and generally prepared for the worst. Typhoon was flying through and under seas that were heavy and strong, and Charles had to hold Uffa in a vice-like grip while he stowed and lashed sails. Although he sometimes caused pain through the excessive force of his grip, it gave Uffa confidence to continue and lessened his fear of being washed overboard.
Typhoon began careering along too fast for safety. On top of the seas, she would begin gathering way and then rush down the face of the wave at an alarming speed, every sea that caught her lifting her elevated buoyant stern high in the air. Mid-way through the afternoon she lurched so alarmingly to port that her masts hit the water. Uffa was below at the time, and managed to grab the table and Dillaway's bunk, while Jim fell from his upper berth onto Bill Nutting who was stretched out on the port seat.
The cockpit filled with water, and empty kegs floated around mixing with the remains of the salt beef. Uffa chose this dramatic moment to start up a heated argument with the skipper on the subject of boats' sterns. Uffa, echoing his father's warning when he advised against the voyage, now believed in pointed while Bill Nutting advocated broad sterns.
Conditions were so harrowing by the 17th that, with everything stowed except the storm trysail set on the mainmast, they could only steer for two hours on end as they were rushing along too fast for the violence of the waves and motion of the ship: this despite towing two great warps astern, one with a heavy iron bucket attached to its end. The wind continued to increase, the sea became more and more confused, the tops of the waves were blown off and the valleys were streaked with foam like snow before a gale; and they could feel the sting of the spray whip their bodies as it lashed against their oilskins.
Fearing the worst, the skipper decided there was no alternative but to heave-to. They prepared the Voss type drogue or sea anchor as it is commonly called, in the comparative quiet of the cockpit below. The Voss varies from the Board of Trade type in that, whereas the latter is a round, tapered canvas funnel with its large end extended by a hefty, galvanized steel hoop and shaped like a dunce's cap with the point snipped off to allow the water to flow through, the Voss is square and held open by a wooden St Andrew's cross, giving an advantage in that the cross can be folded and stowed below, and the drogue itself rolled into a small compass.
Even in the cockpit, rigging the drogue was not easy, Charles sitting and lying on it to hold it down as the wind fought to lift it out of the boat. Once rigged, the problem was to get it aft, drop it over and get the sail down. Dillaway was to pump bilge water and oil with the bilge pumps. Jim and Uffa were to lower and stow the sail, then make their way aft and help Charles stream the anchor. Bill Nutting, who was at the helm, ordered Uffa and Jim to put lifelines on, but they disobeyed his command, feeling it would impede their progress. Uffa made his way forward and signaled Jim to follow. He had just climbed out when a giant sea came. Jim held onto the mizzen and Uffa clutched the mainmast for that one, which turned out to be the forerunner of a sea that broke upon them with ton after ton of water from an enormous height, towering cathedral-like above them. Looking heavenwards at the wave it appeared to be perpendicular, with its top bent over like an overhanging cliff, and the summit seemed thirty feet above at a time when they had already climbed fifteen feet from its base.
Suddenly Typhoon was over. Her masts hit the water and failed to stop. She went on down and over for another twenty degrees. She had gone down on her beam-ends and beyond, and was now over at an angle of 120 degrees to the vertical. Jim, who was halfway between the two masts, with only the handrail along the deckhouse to hold on to, had no chance at all and was swept overboard. Uffa wrapped his legs around the main mast, clutched belaying pins in each hand, and managed to hold on for a fraction of a second. Then he felt swept miles and miles until like a bolt from the blue the mainmast came down and hit him: so he clung on for dear life, slowly at first Typhoon righted herself. Uffa was lifted clear of the water and found himself clinging to the hounds, three-quarters of the way up the mast. Sliding to the deck, he gave a heave at the trysail, which he had expected to be troublesome, and to his heartfelt relief it came down as sweetly and easily as if there had been no wind at all.
Jim, meantime, had managed to grab one of the ropes trailing astern and was dragged alongside as Typhoon's way slackened with the release of the trysail. It seemed hours before they could haul him aboard. Bill, Charles and Uffa succeeded in getting him up under the counter, but as the stern rose out of the sea Jim lacked the strength to hold on and kept sliding back down the rope; and it was not until Bill Nutting succeeded in getting a heavy boathook under him and prised it down, using it as a handspike to raise him to the level of the rail, that he finally slid to safety. They pushed him below and streamed the sea anchor. In the log next day Jim wrote, `I would like to say right here that I owe my life to the cool headedness and quick work of my friends.' Down below Typhoon looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. The inside ballast had burst through the floorboards while she was almost upside down and, striking the chart case, had fallen into the corner of the coach roof where it was joined by the ashes from the stove, a fair indication of how far she had rolled over. Dillaway, who had found himself trapped, a helpless prisoner, when she keeled over, said she lay there for several terrifying seconds suspended in time, debating, before making the decision to right herself.
Spreading towels over the floorboards to keep the broken glass from their bare feet, they made themselves as comfortable as possible before ceremoniously opening their last tin of soup, their last small can of beef and their last tin of mixed vegetables, which had been put by as an emergency ration. They had come so close to missing their last meal they determined to make sure of it. Washing the feast down with a bottle of cognac that had been mercifully spared, in the dimly lighted cabin midst the wreckage they made merry and sang their bawdiest songs; Uffa, despite bruises and a broken toe, joined Dillaway to lead the choir until, exhausted, they crawled into their bunks. The seas crashed down at regular half-hour intervals, shaking the ketch as a terrier shakes a rat; but by this time, and fortified by the brandy, they were immune to it. They could not sail, the wind and the seas were too much. They could not eat as they had consumed virtually the last of the food. So they slept.
Next day was bitterly cold; but the wind, though still blowing, had eased and the seas were not thundering so heavily or so often. Charles lit the stove, and finding some porridge that had fallen into Dillaway's bunk from the stove, fried it for breakfast with a thimbleful of leftover soup. By two pm, the seas eased sufficiently to work on deck again, and a tiny land bird came aboard, rested for an hour and flew on. They were about two hundred miles southeast of New York, with the wind northwest dead ahead.
The seas might have eased slightly, but the days and nights that followed were shivering cold, and with little or no food, they were less able to withstand the rigours of the continual icy showers. Existing mainly on flour and water, with no fats at all, they survived on small pancakes. The cooking trick was to put five little dabs in the frying pan, turn them over when they began to solidify but before they stuck to the pan, eating one each as the next batch cooked. Operation pancake took three men; the skipper coupled to the stove, with another lashing to hold him off it and Charles steadying him with one hand, while Uffa mixed the batter wedged between the companionway and the oilskin locker. The meals lasted for hours without satisfying their hunger.
November 20th came in fine and with a lessening of the wind, and at eleven am, a ship, travelling east, was passing their bow within a quarter of a mile. Uffa semaphored with logbook in one hand and frying pan in the other, `Please report Typhoon of New York thirty-one days from the Azores'; but she was a Spanish ship and could not read the message. Stopping her engines she hove-to while Typhoon luffed under her lee. She was the Guillem Sorolla of Barcelona, and her generous Captain Soler, upon recognizing their plight, rained food like manna from heaven onto the little ship's deck. A leg of mutton, beef, sugar, bread, rice, a keg of lard, fresh and tinned fruit, salmon and two bottles of cognac.
Letting go Typhoon's warps and falling away from the steamer, the adventurers gave three cheers for the Captain and crew, and saluted on their foghorn; the Guillem Sorolla responded with a succession of deafening blasts from her powerful steam whistle. Trimming the sails so that he could join the others below, Uffa looked down and beheld the skipper with a thirty-pound chunk of beef on his lap, fondling, stroking and patting it, as he carved off king-sized portions which they fried and ate with new bread, cooking and feasting for hours. Then, fearful that their stomachs might burst with such overloading, they ended up with fruit and five cascaras apiece.
Early next morning Dillaway at the helm sighted a flashing light on the port bow; but instead of the expected Montauk intervals it showed what turned out to be the triple flash of the Shinnecock Light, which is on Long Island, thirty miles to the west of their estimated course. With a northeasterly breeze they headed straight for New York, running alongside the outer edge of Long Island, finally anchoring for the night off the Atlantic Yacht Club in Gravesend Bay, thirty-two days from the Azores.
When the shouting and heroes' welcome had died down - for they had been reported overdue in the gales that had already claimed five victims, and their survival attracted worldwide interest - Uffa found himself alone in New York. Charles was already on his way back to England, having obtained a passage as trimmer aboard the Celtic, while the remainder of Typhoon's crew, after the trauma of their dice with death and the variance of five individual characters within the confines of a thirty-five-foot boat, were only too thankful to return to the security and peace of their respective homes.
Without friends in America, and too proud to contact his father after their angry parting, Uffa booked a cheap cubicle at the Seamen's Institute near the docks hoping, like Charles, to work his passage: not an easy task as there were some two thousand seamen out of work in New York alone. He passed his days wandering round the docks looking for a passage and doing odd casual jobs of work, and the evenings he spent in the reading room of the New York Public Library, for the most part living on one meal a day that consisted sometimes of only a five cent bowl of rice. The days of winter were dreary and miserable, and Uffa's one thought was to get away from New York that he found cold and inhospitable.
At last, Uffa was taken aboard the Roman Prince, bound for a Spanish port, as third cook. His job did not entail any cooking, only the endless washing of pots and pans and the peeling of potatoes; so, when two Spaniards who were working their passages home as deck hands were taken to hospital, Uffa applied for a job on deck. He saw the skipper, but for reasons best known to themselves, the skipper did not want Uffa aboard, and he lost even the job of third cook, and returned to the Seamen's Institute. Most of the casual jobs Uffa obtained were helping to load ships. He was far from happy with the work. In his opinion, he was continually being picked upon and bullied because, as he put it, he looked young and innocent and was the most inoffensive. One day he felt he could put up with it no longer and `sailed in' at the big Dutchman in charge. Uffa caught him a left on the chin with the full force of his fury behind the blow and, taken by surprise, the Dutchman crumpled to the ground. Uffa further released his pent-up emotions by jumping upon the unconscious man and banging his head up and down on the steel floor until two big black men dragged him off. Uffa was paid off immediately, and his chances of ever working in the docks again became increasingly slim.
Uffa had less and less money for food as the days dragged on, and one night in the depths of despair, he stood on a small swing bridge at Brooklyn so low in spirit that he contemplated jumping into the dirty water below to put an end to his life. A kindly keeper on the bridge, believing Uffa to have lost his hat, came over and said, `Here you are sonny, here is the cap,' and the moment was saved. Next day he had the good fortune to obtain a job as deck hand aboard the Yauban bound for Liverpool; and soon he was home in the Isle of Wight, with his feet under his father's table, and no desire to wander ever again.
(Editor: Charles Hookey died within a few years of his return to the Island from this expedition. His family claimed he never recovered from the depravations he went through both on the cruise to America and having to “work his passage back to the Island” whilst still ill from the journey out.) He is 3rd from the left on the front row in the picture shown in the following story.
His eccentricity is also well documented, including his escapades with the local Home Guard Unit, ‘The Uffashots’, who rode around Cowes with a German machine gun mounted on a gantry above Uffa’s car; and his exploit of riding his mare “Frantic” up the stairs of his house and into his bedroom.
The Cruise to France
After regaling the Scouts with tales of his adventures - for although they had heard most of the Typhoon story from Charles who had arrived home earlier, no one could tell it like Uffa - they settled down to the peaceful pastime of preparing their craft for the summer. The most loved of their boats, certainly as far as Uffa was concerned, was Valhalla's whaleboat. In addition to the many happy hours spent aboard her, she had a special significance for Uffa, as his Great Grandpa Miller had done whale harpooning at one point during his chequered career. Though 30 feet 5 inches overall, she had a beam of only five feet six inches and a hull weight of 850 pounds. In her prime she had hung proudly in Valhalla's davits, suspended high above the water ready to be lowered like a streak of lightning directly a whale was sighted when, filled with gear, harpoons and a crew of seven men, she would speed after her quarry, rowing or sailing according to the weather.Uffa believed that the time was ripe for his Scouts to be `blooded'. In those days `going foreign', even by conventional means, was virtually unheard of; so when he reached the conclusion that they were sufficiently experienced to sail and row their way to France and back he proceeded with the utmost caution. He thought it wiser not to let the parents know for they would only worry or perhaps even forbid the voyage. No, far kinder to keep the older generation in ignorance than cause unnecessary worry, he reasoned. He made his plans quietly and carefully, and the air of secrecy surrounding the whole operation added to the boys' sense of excitement.
They would be ten in number, their ages ranging from fourteen to eighteen, except for Scout Master Uffa and ASM Bill Waight who were older. The object was to take their two-week summer holiday cruising as usual; but instead of heading north to England, they would cross the English Channel to Le Havre and make their way up the Seine to Rouen and, time permitting, on to Paris.
Uffa, who enjoyed going barefoot, forbade shoes or socks in an effort to keep the weight down. For drinking water, they carried a large wooden breaker from which they were each allowed six sucks, and the food was stowed in square biscuit tins sealed with black sticky tape. The boat was open, without comfort or convenience, and she invariably collected sufficient water in the bilges when under way to warrant a boy on permanent duty with hand pump or bailer.
Setting sail from Cowes on the last Saturday of July 1921, on the tail end of a strong south-westerly wind which had been blowing some days, with a fair tide they beat down the Solent, putting into first base, Colwell Bay, for the afternoon. By seven-twenty in the evening, the conditions were right to continue, and they set sail for France.
Uffa steered throughout most of the night, and the boys were divided into three watches of three, their jobs being lookout, mainsheet man and bailer. Taking an hour at each, they all three performed for an hour at each operation during the three-hour watch. Those not sick or on duty slept fitfully, huddled in oilskins under tents attempting to keep out the worst of the spray; mostly hanging like hammocks with their necks on one thwart (an oarsman's bench placed across the boat) and the backs of their legs on the next. Two of the luckier ones found some shelter under the dodger, with just their little cold feet sticking out.
With the dawn, the lookout was allowed to turn in and Uffa, Bill and Spike sailed on into the steadily improving weather until eight am. After breakfast Uffa, likening himself to Napoleon who, upon retiring, left orders that he was only to be called in the event of bad news, slept until mid afternoon. He woke to find the sea quieter and the spray no longer flying over the weather bow, and soon there was a flat calm. Delaying rowing until the cool of the evening, at eight pm they split into two watches, both to take four hours rowing. Uffa joined in the first watch. Although the fifteen-foot oars were long and heavy for short arms, Uffa did not think the four-hour shift excessive as the boys had had plenty of practice, and the youngsters accepted his decision as a matter of course. At four-thirty in the morning, half an hour after Uffa's watch had commenced its second spell at the oars, a breeze started up from the west, and for the next three hours, Uffa and Bill sailed under dipping lugsail while the remainder of the gang turned in. Suddenly, at seven-thirty am the fog, which had come up with the dawn, lifted and, as Uffa yelled `Land ho', the boys opened salt-weary eyes for a first thrilling glimpse of La Belle France.
Cruising gently towards Le Havre, they washed and smartened themselves and the whaler before showing the flag in a foreign port and, forty hours after setting forth from the Needles sailed proudly into the harbour on what proved to be the hottest day of the year. Exhaustion forgotten, they tied up their valiant ship and, fascinated, savoured the wonderful new sights and smells as they explored the sea-front and town; followed by football on the sands until, overcome by the heat, Charles collapsed, giving them all an excuse to adjourn to the nearest cafe-bar for refreshment. At six-thirty in the evening, with a fresh breeze and strong flood tide, the intrepid lads set off on the first leg of their journey up the Seine and, after two hours' good sailing, reached La Roque breakwater where they settled for the night, some sleeping in a rat-infested mud hut, others under the sail stretched over a fence, Uffa lording it in the whaleboat.
Making an early start on the strong rushing flood tide of Tuesday morning, they washed and breakfasted aboard, rowing until eight-thirty when a strong breeze abaft the beam enabled them to hoist sail until the tide turned against them at midday. Putting into the small market town of Duclair, which was shuttered and slumbering in the noonday sun, they tied up at the tumbledown pier and organized sports amongst themselves: tug-of-war, boxing, wrestling and relay racing. Finally the boys set upon the defenceless Uffa, stuffing grass into his mouth which they forced him to eat: an incident that sums up rather well Uffa's natural ability to retain the comradeship of his willing slaves despite an authority of almost Captain Bligh like proportion at sea. In the late evening, they slipped away on the first of the flood for a four-hour row, mooring on a small island less than an hour from Rouen, reasoning that the chances of finding a place to camp in Rouen itself would be extremely remote. They rolled up in blankets on the lawn of what to all intents and purposes was an empty house, only to be confronted at seven in the morning by the owner and his wife.
Finding a small steamer from London berthed at Rouen, they tied up alongside, and with several hours before them set out to enjoy one of the most delightful and friendly cities in the whole of France. After tea they set sail again, and were lucky enough to catch up with a tug and tie on astern for, while at one bend of the river they could sail at six knots, they could barely do two at the next: so it was easier to tow at a steady four knots all the way, particularly as the river folk were full of kindness and helpfully disposed towards them. When the tug moored up for the night, they sailed on to an island and rolled up in their blankets under the stars. At six next morning, their tug of the previous day came abreast and blew its whistle. They were up in a flash, blankets piled into the boat and rowing out into the river by the time the fourth and last of the barges she was towing drew abreast. Tagging on to the end of the convoy they washed dressed and breakfasted while being towed at four knots in the direction of Paris. Then, entering their first lock rose eight feet before continuing on their way. The first lock only took three-quarters of an hour to manoeuvre, but at the next one there were so many barges and tugs waiting to proceed up and down river that they were delayed for three and a half hours, causing them to reflect for the first time that they might not achieve their ambition and reach Paris after all. In an effort to get ahead faster, when their own tug finished towing at seven pm, they set off to row to the next lock, arriving at one am and tying behind a fleet of barges waiting to go through. Sleeping in fits and starts aboard; piercing shrieks from three tugs’ whistles rudely awakened them. Tired, cramped and disorientated, they muddled and fell over one another, shouting and abusing, but finally squeezing into the lock and tying up behind the last of the barges for the day's tow.
Towards the end of a day spent being towed in and out of locks they sailed into Mantes where, after visiting the cathedral, they filled their breaker with fresh water from the fountains and bathed before continuing on to the next lock. The friendly lock keeper informed them that they were seventy kilometres from Paris by river although only forty-five by road: so next day they walked into Meulan to talk things over during breakfast, when they reluctantly reached the conclusion that, with both time and money running out, there was no alternative but to turn back without seeing Paris.
Whereas on the outward journey they had been unable to find a single steamer going all the way through to Paris, luck was with them on the return enabling them, after a couple of short tows, to join up with the Swallow of Grimsby which was doing eight knots. The skipper was both kind and cooperative. In addition to towing them to Rouen and beyond, he permitted them to curl up on the Swallow's after deck at night. At Rouen, they shopped in the market place for provisions to last until they reached England and stored them in the whaleboat, leaving at noon on the Monday of their second week's holiday astern of the Swallow. That evening they reached the entrance to the Tancarville Canal where, as there was too much sea due to strong NW winds for the Seine pilot to take the Swallow out, she anchored. The Sea Scouts tied up to the piles alongside the lock gates to await high water, hoping to go through the canal and save the bashing they would receive in the Seine estuary. Keeping a careful watch on the tides they pushed away from the piles at ten-fifteen pm, for the young flood in the Seine rises so rapidly that if the boat had been caught for only thirty seconds under a notch in the pile, she would have filled. Entering the canal at midnight they were for the first time asked to show ship's papers and passports. They had made the journey without documents of any kind, so Uffa signed the book `Cowes Sea Scouts'.
One of the tugs locking with the whaleboat took them through to the Le Havre locks, dropping fourteen feet, and soon they were as free as birds, sailing through the breakwater entrance towards the open sea and home. Before long the strong north-westerly wind faded away, and they tied to the bell buoy Cap de la Heve, an utterly miserable experience for there was a heavy swell rolling in, and the continual tolling of the bell was excruciating beyond belief. Uffa never forgot the ear shattering misery, and years later at a dinner party during the Second World War, when the conversation veered towards suggested punishments for Hitler on the day Nemesis finally overtook him, Uffa's contribution was that he should be incarcerated permanently within a bell buoy. After a while, their warp carried away and they decided to set sail, the wind now coming up from the north. The relief to be sailing after one and a half hours tied to the rolling bell buoy was immense. At nine-thirty pm the flash of St Catherine's Light, seventy-five miles away, became visible, for although the light, one of the most powerful in the world, was below the horizon, it could be observed flashing on the clouds above. The strong wind continued until one-thirty am, gradually dropping until they only just had steerageway. They sailed gently through the night until nine am, then rowed until four pm when the wind came up with a rushing squall. Stowing oars and setting sail again they headed straight for Ventnor, the southernmost tip of the Isle of Wight, where they were greeted by anxious coastguards who had followed their progress through telescopes believing them to be a shipwrecked crew. Reaching Cowes that night was out of the question, the tides running against them both east and west about: so the boys spent their final night in shelters on the sea front while Uffa stretched out in solitary state in the beached whaler. Two sixteen-year-olds, Spike and Spot, who had to report for work the following morning, set out an hour before midnight, barefoot as they had been throughout the entire trip, to walk the fifteen long and weary miles from Ventnor to East Cowes through the darkness; and despite their hard days at sea, and only two hours' sleep in their beds, they arrived for work on time the next morning. Uffa had the greatest respect for all of his Scouts, but he particularly remembered the courage, fortitude and sense of duty of these two youngsters.
Extracts from "Sailing, seamanship and yacht construction – Uffa Fox"
We would not like to give the impression that Uffa was a model citizen. As an example, the Sea Scout Committee made him a Scout Master. On one of his excursions as Scout Master and at a time when he was unemployed, he decided that it was time to “blood” the Troop. He took “Valhalla’s” whaleboat with his Scouts to France in the summer holidays. There was ten crew ages ranging from fourteen to eighteen. Uffa swore them all to secrecy and told them to tell everyone that they would be camping in the Solent area. In fact, they were trying to reach Paris via the Seine. On returning home, they were “greeted“ by some very angry parents. The committee resigned en bloc and Uffa was charged with irresponsibility and placing young lives in jeopardy. He became a martyr to the scouts but the devil to the parents. It turned out that the “team” had not quite made Paris but had turned back only twenty miles short.
Isle of Wight's fantastic Uffa Fox by Neil Sackley - BBC Hampshire and Isle of Wight History Site
(The majority of this information is from his 1963 “This Is Your Life” programme)
Uffa
There is a local saying on the Isle of Wight: "If it was Queen Victoria who put Cowes on the map, it was Uffa Fox who kept it there".
Uffa Fox was born in West Cowes in 1898. The son of a Suffolk carpenter Arthur, and his wife Lucy, Uffa was named after 'Wuffa', an ancient King of East Anglia.
He attended Whippingham School in East Cowes, and even as a schoolboy, his love of the ocean was obvious.
He joined the Cowes Sea Scout Troop in 1914, and forged a friendship which was to the disapproval of many of his friends' parents. Talking on Uffa's 'This Is Your Life' programme in 1963, fellow Sea Scout Robert Lumsden admitted they never know what to expect next. "That Uffa Fox will drown you!" was the cry from the worried parents.
On leaving school Uffa became an apprentice boat builder, a career path taken up by many in Cowes at that time. He was also a choir boy at St James Church in the town. Not only did he sing hymns in church - he would also sing whilst working in the boat sheds. His vocal qualities were not always appreciated by those around him, and it was not unknown for the managers to send Uffa home to "maintain quiet".
World War I
When World War I broke out, Uffa served in the Royal Navy Air Service. He spent three years repairing launches at the air-bases on Britain's east coast. But Cowes remained his home and Uffa returned to the Isle of Wight and set himself up as a boat-builder.Rosemary Joyce, a trustee of the Classic Boat Museum in Newport said: "His adventures are legendary around here".
By the age of 21, Uffa was Sea Scoutmaster in Cowes. He took the boys for a trip to sea in a whaleboat. "The parents assumed that they were spending time in The Solent, possibly to Weymouth", Rosemary explained. "In fact he took them up the Seine to Paris".
Trans Atlantic
In 1920, Uffa signed up as a member of a five-man crew, to sail the Atlantic in the American ketch Typhoon. The 5,000 mile (8,000 km) voyage from Cowes to New York took 50 days. A year later, again as part of a five-man crew, he sailed back across the Atlantic, this time in a 46 ft schooner. While in the USA, Uffa entered, and won the American canoe championships.
Already an accomplished sailor, Uffa designed the fourteen foot dinghy “Avenger”. It was with “Avenger” in 1922 that Uffa achieved 52 first place, two seconds and three third places together with The Prince of Wales cup.
"Trapezes to you"
Together with fellow sailor Peter Scott, Uffa devised a way of controlling a boat in high winds. Using a cable attached high up the mast, the sailor would be able to clip himself on, then stand on the edge of the boat rather than sit on it. This manoeuvre would allow the sailor's weight to be further away from the boat, pulling the mast vertical, allowing the vessel to be sailed much faster. The practice was subsequently banned in racing for over twenty years.
The Airborne lifeboat
Airborne lifeboat
Uffa's most outstanding invention was the airborne lifeboat {see picture above}. The self-righting, self-bailing boats could be dropped from underneath bombers, to allow airmen who had ditched in the sea to sail home in safety. The boats, which could hold up to 25 men, contained sails, an engine with enough fuel for 1,000 miles (1,600 km), food, clothing and cigarettes. The airborne lifeboat saved hundreds of lives during the war. The first airmen to be saved by the lifeboat were the crew of a Halifax bomber which ditched into the North Sea while returning from a raid on Dortmund in 1943. His gravestone in Whippingham churchyard is inscribed with the lifeboat's design.
Uffa at work
Uffa - Prince Phillip sums him up
At the end of the war, Uffa went back to designing boats that could be sailed for fun. In October 1955, the Duke of Edinburgh - in his role as president of the Royal Society of Arts presented Uffa with The Diploma of Royal Designer for Industry. In presenting the award Prince Phillip commented:
"There is a tendency today to believe that every new invention must be scientific or rational. I can confirm that there is nothing scientific or rational about Mr Fox".