Tributes are paid to Bosham woman who sailed the ocean

Denise St Aubyn Hubbard, who lived in Bosham for nearly 60 years, has died at the age of 91.

Denise was a translator at Bletchley Park during the war before she competed as a high diver in the 1948 London Olympics.

She moved to Bosham with her young family in 1955 and learned to sail around Chichester Harbour, joining the Royal Navy Auxiliary Service in 1970 where she was the only female skipper.

In 1988, aged 64, she sailed across the Atlantic, in a yacht named Flying Light, from Plymouth to Newport, Rhode Island.

Her funeral was held in Bosham yesterday.

Her daughter Geraldine Dawson said: ‘She was great fun, full of energy. Nothing was done slowly, we had to run to keep up with her when we were small.

‘She had a great sense that when something needed to be done she just got on with it.’