Not bad (for a ‘Beatle’)


Dobbs Davis traces the fast-changing scenery that has characterised the long and successful career of one of the best-known figures in offshore racing


A life lived in and around offshore racing is not all bad: you get to see the world, meet


interesting people, have great


adventures along with acquiring that sense of achievement that comes from all competitive sport. Yes, there are tremen- dous uncertainties and even dangers in living a peripatetic lifestyle that would be imperiling to some but an inspirational challenge to others. One of these others is Jim Pugh, whose


formative years in 1960s Lymington thrust him into the heart of the British offshore sailing scene at a time of tremendous growth and innovation and started a life- long embrace of the sport as a major influential figure in offshore yacht design. For Jim his trajectory did not start in


Lymington… far from it. He was born in the 1950s in Liverpool, far from the south coast yachting crowd, farther still when as a lad he was sent to boarding school in Scotland and then to agricultural academy


46 SEAHORSE


in Somerset. ‘That farm was really, really far away from everything,’ he says. ‘We were expected to care for the livestock after lessons – the pigs, the sheep and cows – it was hard work but I learned a lot…’ Jim adds that while the pastoral life was


good for teaching him about hard work, he yearned for more than a farm in Somerset. His break came when a col- league of his mother’s who years before had worked with her at the War Office invited them to his weekend home in Lymington. That colleague was Lt Com- mander Rupert Curtis, whose Comman- dos of the 1st Special Service Brigade rode Hamble-based landing craft into Sword Beach during the invasion of Normandy. ‘My mother was good about keeping in


touch with people through writing letters, and she remained friends with Commander Curtis and his wife Elizabeth for many years after the war.’ To the young Pugh Curtis was an inspiring figure and he helped spark an attraction to the sea that would shape his life; his mother saw this and had soon found him a position on the Winston Churchill, a three-masted training schooner and for two weeks Pugh roamed the Channel learning about life at sea. ‘It was freezing weather in April,’ says


Pugh, ‘and another kid and I were on the foredeck getting splashed by waves in our old oilskins and holystoning the deck. It


was cold and rough, everyone else was sick so I was ducking in and out of the empty galley to grab all the food.’ Mother and son remained at the house


in Lymington for some time, but as Pugh watched the kids launching their Moths he soon realised that though he loved the sea he knew nothing about sailing or boats – but that he wanted to be a part of it. So during summers he found work at Hood Sails through which he was soon crewing on big boats racing in the Solent. Besides his work at Hood, this is also


when Pugh met and started a lifelong friendship with boatbuilder Bill Green, who was very active in the Solent scene at that time. Pugh’s first serious big boat racing was as warm-up crew on the radical Carter-designed Red Rooster alongside Green and an enthusiastic gang of young and hungry wannabe ocean racers. Rooster went on to be a part of the USA’s winning Admiral’s Cup team of that year and would be a big influence on the next generation of offshore designs. Another early influence was a Brazilian


AC crew who roomed with the Pughs in Lymington during the event, an exposure to sailors and boats from around the globe that Pugh credits with activating the wanderlust in him… He set off for the Med in 1969 and raced the Middle Sea Race, then headed further south to Cape Town for the 1970


ALL PHOTOS JONATHAN EASTLAND/AJAX/ALAMY


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