| Sue Knox-Johnston Dies. Copy of Yachting Monthly article |
Sue Knox-Johnston Dies
From an article in Yachting Monthly
Sue Knox-Johnston (62), wife of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, died on 28 November 2003 after a long fight with ovarian cancer. At the funeral service in Devon, family friend Nigel Rowe, chairman of Sail Training International, described how he first met Sue more than 20 years ago.
"She was a very private person with the most enormous inner personal strength. Sue was utterly reliable, straightforward, no side to her at all.... hated anyone devious or false and could spot it a mile off "
When Robin was eight years old, the Knox-Johnstons moved into a house across the road from Sue's family in Beckenham, Kent. Six year old Sue went to Bromley High School, where she and a group of other pupils formed a clique which Robin called the gym slip gang. It was many years later before Robin plucked up the courage to ask her out. Later, Sue studied nursing at University College Hospital and Robin, on leave from a spell at sea, spent his entire £75 signing on grant on an engagement ring having just passed his 2nd Mate's exam.
They married in 1962 and moved to India, where Robin was serving with the British India Steam Navigation Company. Their daughter Sara was born in Bombay the following year. Later Suhaili, the 32ft ketch in which Robin became the first man to sail solo non-stop around the world , was built in a local shipyard, and an interlude began when Robin and Sue were apart - a time they both referred to as "the wasted years". Happily those years came to an end in 1972.
It is not generally known that Sue sailed twice across the Atlantic with Robin and was for a time the fastest woman to sail the Atlantic. The first boat was the 70ft catamaran Sea Falcon in the early 1980s. In 1986, in another catamaran British Airways, they crossed in 10 days 14 hours and 9 mins, a record which stood until1997. Sea Falcon was lost when Robin and Sue were doing the two handed Vilamoura Race and they were run down off Finisterre on the return leg in 1983.
Nigel Rowe recalled : " Sue was fiercely proud of Robin and of the recognition of his achievements, although I do remember being on the receiving end of one of her admonishing frowns when I referred to her soon after Robin's knighthood as Lady Knox-Johnston...''Oh for goodness sake Nigel!" she said.
'Sue was the steadfast, reliable, dependable fixed point of reference in Robin's and Sara's lives. Robin sought Sue's views in everything that mattered in his life. She was his soul mate.'
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