News at Whitstable Yacht Club
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Roy Hamilton
Posted: Friday, 22 November, 2019
We're saddened to announce the passing of WYC member Roy Hamilton after a brief illness.
His first foray into the world of sailing ended ignominiously when he and his friend Reg managed to sink a dinghy off Harty Ferry! His first sailing club was Rye Harbour, but his sailing career really took off when he discovered catamarans and Seasalter Sailing Club, where he helped to build the clubhouse that still stands today. Roy sailed and built a number of Swifts, also building some for others, progressing on to Condors and then Hurricanes.
It was with a Hurricane that he first joined Whitstable Yacht Club, Seasalter’s loss being very much WYC’s gain. He progressed on to a Tornado with which he ended his sailing career, much of the time partnered by his friend Karen Ludgate.
Roy took part in many local, national and international sailing competitions and it is a measure of the regard with which he was held that, even after his retirement from sailing in his seventies, well-known cat sailors came to pay their respects to him. These included David Williams, Ian Rhodes, Kevin Dutch, Grant Piggott, Will Sunnucks and Simon Northrop. He was always on hand to give advice and practical assistance to other sailors, making sure that borrowed tools were always returned!
He was an active social member of both the Seasalter and Whitstable clubs, even after he had stopped sailing in the case of WYC, being a regular at the coffee mornings otherwise known as the ‘Grumpy Old Gits Club”.
For those who were privileged to meet him he was a kind, generous and dignified man with a ready and mischievous sense of humour and fair play. To say he will be missed is to put it mildly. He was a legend.
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