17 Facts About Francis Chichester

Sir Francis Charles Chichester KBE was a British businessman, pioneering aviator and solo sailor.

At the age of six he was sent as a boarder to The Old Ride Preparatory School for boys, then attended Marlborough College during World War I At the age of eighteen Chichester emigrated to New Zealand where in ten years he built up a prosperous business in forestry, mining and property development, only to suffer severe losses in the Great Depression.

Francis Chichester then took delivery of a de Havilland Gipsy Moth aircraft, which he intended to fly to New Zealand, hoping to break Bert Hinkler's record solo flight back to Australia on the way.

Francis Chichester was the first to land an aircraft at Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island.

Since Francis Chichester arrived at Lord Howe Island in the afternoon, the Sun was to his north-west when he made his turn.

Related searches

Francis Chichester planned his final approach to follow a line of position directly to his destination.

Francis Chichester was awarded the inaugural Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators Johnston Memorial Trophy for this trip.

Francis Chichester then decided to circumnavigate the world solo; he made it to Japan but at Katsuura, Chiba he collided with an overhead cable, sustaining serious injuries.

Francis Chichester's first posting was to the Air Ministry in the Navigation section of the Directorate of Air Member Training, where he served until August 1942.

Francis Chichester wrote the navigation manual that allowed the pilots of single-handed fighter aircraft to navigate across Europe and back using kneeboard navigation similar to that which he had used in the Pacific.

Francis Chichester purchased 15,000 surplus Air Ministry maps, initially pasting them onto boards and making jigsaw puzzles out of them, and later founded his own successful map-making company.

On 27 August 1966 Francis Chichester sailed his ketch Gipsy Moth IV from Plymouth in the United Kingdom and returned there after 226 days of sailing on 28 May 1967, having circumnavigated the globe, with one stop.

The voyage was a race against the clock, as Francis Chichester wanted to beat the typical times achieved by the fastest fully crewed clipper ships during the heyday of commercial sail in the 19th century.

In July 1967, a few weeks after his solo circumnavigation, Francis Chichester was knighted, being appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for "individual achievement and sustained endeavour in the navigation and seamanship of small craft".

In 1968, when Donald Crowhurst was trying to win the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single-handed round-the-world event, it was Francis Chichester who dismissed Crowhurst's wildly exaggerated reports of his own progress, which had fooled many enthusiastic supporters.

In 1970, Francis Chichester attempted to sail 4,000 miles in twenty days, in Gipsy Moth V, but failed by one day.

Francis Chichester died of cancer in Plymouth, Devon, on 26 August 1972, and was buried in the church of his ancestors, St Peter's Church in Shirwell, near Barnstaple.