Alfred Basil Lubbock, yachtsman and marine author, was born on the 9th of September 1876 of parents Alfred Lubbock (seventh son of Sir John Lubbock, second baronet, and brother of the first Lord Avebury) and Louisa née Wallroth, and died at Monks Orchard, Blatchington, Sussex on the 3rd September 1944.
He wrote extensively on maritime matters, particularly the latter days of sail, including a wealth of detail and personal reminiscences collected from numerous square-rig masters. He was a keen yachtsman, hunter and cricketer; he was a member of the Society for Nautical Research.
Basil was educated at Eton in R.A.H. Mitchell's House, where he was a member of the cricket team in 1894-5, and while he was probably expected to continue on to Kings College, Cambridge, he in fact left for the Klondyke, hiking over the Chilcoot Trail, and joining the Gold Rush of 1896-97 for several months.
He returned via Vancouver Island thinking of propsecting for copper; then via San Francisco, where on 12 July 1899, he signed on the four-mast barque Ross-Shire of Glasgow as an Ordinary Seaman in the apprentices' half deck for £2 per month. The planned voyage was round the Horn to Queenstown for orders.
Lubbock also sailed briefly on the 1,345 ton Commonwealth, a full rigged ship, as a "sort of second mate". He fell about 50 feet from the mizzen, landing on the poop rail and breaking a belaying pin off inside his thigh.
He fought during the Boer War of 1899-1901 with the Royal Field Artillery and Menne's Scouts for which he was Mentioned in Despatches, for helping to save life under fire.
In 1912 Basil Lubbock married Dorothy "Dot" Mary Warner, widow of Commander Thomas Ulric Thynne and daughter of the late Charles Warner C.B. She died only a few weeks after her husband on 15 November 1944. Neither partnership produced any children.
He served during WWI with a territorial commision from October 1914 to April1919 with the 1/3 Wessex Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, in India and France. He was awarded the Military Cross.
Basil Lubbock was the founder and first Commodore (1919 to 1931) of the Hamble River Sailing Club. He was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, on the List 1923 - 43.
In 1922, Basil Lubbock approached Alfred Westmacott, to design "an improved Mermaid" from which was born, on November 22, as the Hamble One Design Class (known as the Y Class, as all boat names had to end with a 'y', then later as Solent Sunbeam). He was the Solent Sunbeam Class Captain from 1922 to 1930 and owned the first hull built, Dainty, Sail Number 1. The Class was based at the Hamble River Sailing Club from 1922-1930, the Bembridge Sailing Club (1930-1939), and since the war, at the Itchenor Sailing Club.
Basil Lubbock took his friend Wilfred Dowman, a square-rigger sailor, racing in the Dainty. Dowman was a man of means who at one time owned the clipper ship Cutty Sark in her old age. He became interested in the class and ordered one for racing at Falmouth, where the Falmouth Sunbeams became established for some years before 1939, with eight or more racing.
Lubbock continued his contacts with Captain Dowman by writing "The Log of the Cutty Sark" which was published in 1924. His writing from then on averaged nearly one book a year with his last major work, "The Arctic Whalers" being published in 1937. Articles by Lubbock appeared over the years in The Blue Peter, the Mariner's Mirror and other journals.