John Gale 1943-2015

Received from Graham Reeves:

John Gale’s daughters contacted me this week to tell me their father had passed away. At the moment we have no further details as to the circumstances.

John was an incredible builder of model yachts having built over 150 in his model yachting lifetime. Nearly all of his yachts were built to the MYA classes. Most of his boats were either planked or carved with the occasional one in fibreglass. John made everything from starting with a timber board and cutting the wood, either planking or carving the hull, then onto casting his own keels, making all of the fittings and sails, rigging them and then sailing the finished yacht.

Johns boats won numerous vane championships and in particular the A class Nationals and the Y M Cup sailed by Graham and Shaun Wyeth. John was a keen vane sailor and was well liked and respected by the vane sailing fraternity. In recent years ill health caused him to give up vane sailing but he always turned up at vane days at his local club Hampton Court. It was only in the past couple of years that he started to give in to radio. He will be sadly missed by all that knew him.