In the second part of her memoir, 87-year-old sailor
Fay Armstrong-Boyes meets Uffa Fox, crews in Holland
and Ireland and makes friends for life in Scarborough
The sailing Sixties
BOATS
Y
es, we really did mean to
go to sea! Our youthful
adventures in our far from
suitable amateur-built vessels
did nothing to blunt our appetites for
further challenges. In PBO April 2019 I
explained how Swallows and Amazons
had inspired three project boats, and
how my fiancée Jack and I had sold
our converted World War II lifeboat to
pay for our wedding. Now, we were to
enter a new phase in our boating lives.
We were well aware that although we
were confident with Duet, a) she was not a
suitable craft to pursue our plans for
‘proper’ sea sailing, and b) certainly not
appropriate for daring to take on board a
young baby in the longer term.
We were still members of the York Motor
Boat Club, where we were lucky enough
to meet Uffa Fox, the boat designer at
Fairey Marine, who sailed with the Duke of
Edinburgh on his Dragon Blue Bottle. After
giving a talk, Uffa Fox wandered up and
down the club’s riverside moorings,
mostly occupied by motorboats. Our little
sailing cutter took his eye and he chattedABOUT THE AUTHORFay Armstrong
worked as a
scientist in
hospital
laboratories from
1949 to 1976, and
at York University,
specialising in
biochemistry. She has three
children, two of whom have been
inspired to travel. Fay, who turns 88
in April, made her last voyage on a
small yacht aged 78 when she
assisted a friend in taking his new
boat from Barrow-in-Furness to the
Isle of Man and Maryport, Cumbria.We still owned our pretty little Norwegian
cutter Duet, which served us well for our
simple weekend trips up and down the
non-tidal Ouse at York. However, once a
year the York Motor Boat Club organised a
rally to Ferriby, situated on the
Lincolnshire shore of the tidal Humber,
just a few miles upstream from the then
thriving fishing port of Grimsby.
This trip was a good test of seamanship
and navigation skills. The shallow water
and shifting sandbanks were the breeding
grounds for nasty short, breaking seas
and woe betide the unwary helmsman
who strayed outside the charts-defined
channel! But fortunately our club
members were prudent and vigilant so we
were all able to enjoy the wonderful
hospitality of the Brigg Sailing Club in the
safe tranquillity of the River Ancholme
beyond the locks at Ferriby Sluice.
The year is 1958; Jack and I had been
married for five years. We decided that it
was time we ventured into home
ownership. We found a plot of land in a
tiny village – little more than a hamlet
about eight miles from our city flat
overlooking the famous Bar Walls in York- and had a new house built. Quite a
major change to our lifestyle. Well, no
doubt you’ll know the expression “New
house, new baby” – well, so it befell!
Fay and husband Jack once built a 20ft
yacht in the front garden of their home at
Bilbrough, near York