Vernon Stratton 1927-2011

With regret we learn of the death of Vernon Stratton, a member of Royal Thames for almost sixty years and holding within the Club Seniority Number 11. Vernon joined RTYC in 1951.

Vernon fulfilled a long, distinguished and varied career in yachting. He represented Great Britain in the Finn dinghy at the Rome Olympics in 1960 and thereafter became manager of the British Olympic sailing team for the '68 Games in Acapulco with Pepe as Assistant Manager (where Rodney Pattisson and Royal Thames member Iain Macdonald-Smith won Gold in the Flying Dutchman two-person dinghy and Robin Aisher, with Adrian Jardine and Paul Anderson, took Bronze in the 5.5 Metre), in 1972 at Kiel (Gold for Pattisson and Davies; Silver for Warren and Hunt in the Tempest) and again for the 1980 Games at Tallinn until the RYA withdrew the British sailing team despite his strenuous efforts and protests.

Vernon was also Secretary then President of the International Finn Association. He then moved to the Star, Bembridge Redwings and Illusions.   He had been Admiral of the Illusion Fleet at Bembridge for many years and although last year he restricted his Illusion racing to the less windy days, he was invariably in the dinghy park offering advice and helping others.  In all his sailing Vernon was not only a top performer but also an indefatigable organiser and administrator. Last year (2010) he was presented by HRH The Princess Royal with an RYA Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Vernon's Finn sailing began in the early Fifties when Martin Beale persuaded him to move out of Fireflies into the then-new Olympic single-hander. The move began a long love affair in more ways than one: Vernon began Olympic training in 1951 and although not selected for the '52 Games he did meet and become engaged to Pepe (Penelope) Lowles who had greatly impressed him not least by beating Stewart Morris, the '48 Gold Medallist in Swallows, in the '52 Trials (‘not bad for a girl before the days of bendy masts' wrote Vernon many years later).  Later, with Tiny Mitchell of Royal Corinthian fame, Vernon inaugurated the Finn Gold Cup - to this day one of the Great Trophies of our sport - and indeed won it himself in 1960, using a sweater made of string wool, soaked in water to make it heavy and worn over the rest of his sailing gear to give him more power when hiking upwind.

By 1968 Vernon had become President of the International Finn Association and with Gilbert Lamboley (who invented the Lamboley Gyration Test for measuring and recording weight distribution) completely re-wrote the class measurement rules to render the Finn genuinely one-design. It was a move which kept the Finn  an Olympic class. In 1971 he persuaded the German organisers of the '72 Games (to be held at Kiel and Munich) to adopt metal masts for the class. At the '77 Weymouth Olympic Week Vernon, now 50, capsized his Finn in heavy weather and decided that enough was enough - so as a retirement present Pepe bought him a Star, the Olympic two-man keelboat, instead.   

Meanwhile Vernon had started a successful advertising agency and from 1965 until 1977 was editor and publisher of Finnfare, the International Finn class magazine.  He was Commodore of Bembridge SC from 2000 - 2001 and was instrumental in the very successful new building project that was completed in May 2002.

There will be a private family funeral with, later, a Memorial Service on Friday 16th September at 3pm at Holy Trinity Church Bembridge, and afterwards at Bembridge Sailing Club.