Jim Saltonstall – My Life in a Blue Suit

Jim Saltonstall MBA, the man credited with making Britain great at Olympic Sailing and providing the bedrock, via the RYA, for a training base structure that turned the genteel world of British club dinghy racing into an international medal winning machine.

His remarkable freewheeling autobiography takes you from the meeting of a sailing-mad Yorkshire youth with the Royal Navy at the age of 15, through his life forming experiences around the world, and his later key promotion to Royal Navy Sailing Coach.

Appointed to raise the standard of the RN teams he applied a three-stage programme . . . Introductory Level, Intermediate Level and Advanced Level . . . based-on his ‘Ten Aspects of the Sport’ which he includes in the book as one of a series of light Interludes.

The breakout came after 15 years in the Navy with his successful application to the RYA as National Yacht Racing Coach in 1977 . . . the Navy’s loss was the RYA’s gain.

And the stage was set for a huge step-change as Saltonstall joined the small team in the RYA Office and set about raising the standard of yacht and dinghy racing in the UK.

He quickly transformed his three-stage programme from his Navy time . . . into Red, White and Blue Badges, and rolled out the RYA’s National Youth Racing Scheme based at club, regional and national level.

Launched from Queen Mary SC in 1977, Jim spent the next 23 years on the road spreading the word and averaging 40,00 miles per annum in a car travelling around the UK and Europe and flying further afield – New Zealand 16 times!

Thus, the fastest sailing ‘Ferrets’ were born . . .

As Jim set about applying his strict system – What Bob Fisher described as ‘Certainly no rest cure, but there can be no doubt that it is beginning to pay dividends already’ – Jim’s Ferrets began to achieve increasing success in Youth sailing on the international scene in the 1980s.

This involved names soon to become all too familiar on the winner’s podium, including Iain Percy, Ben Ainslie, Chris Draper Nick Rogers, Bart Simpson and many more in their move towards the Olympic classes.

It was after an embarrassing total Olympic medal haul of four (2 sailing) at the 1996 Atlanta Games that the final piece of the puzzle arrived.

GB Olympic teams received their first Sport UK Funding, with sailing receiving £2.3m (now £24.8m for Paris 2024) and four years later at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Jim’s ‘Ferrets’ did him and the country proud.

Team GB won a record five Olympic sailing medals, with Ainslie, Percy and Robertson winning gold, and silver for Walker & Covell, and Barker & Hiscocks.

Jim retired from the RYA in 2000 after 23 years, following a change of employment policy, but quickly found his phone did not stop ringing now he was available and long may it continue.

Throughout the book Jim describes a life well lived and work well done, dispensing encouragement and inspiring youngsters to chase their dreams

Any parent or budding Olympic sailor could do no better than keep this volume to hand.

The book will be officially launched at the Fernhurst Books’ stand at the RYA Dinghy and Watersports Show, 14:30 on Saturday 24 February 2023