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No... sheer coincidence.  Chichester the City on teh South coast of Britain 
and Sir Francis Chichester have no connection that I know of.  I actually 
live in Bosham which is 3 miles SW of Chichester;  but Chichester is the 
closest city for anyone wishing to know my approx location in GB.
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Francis Chichester became famous here in GB for his solo circumnavigation of 
the world in his fine yacht Gipsey Moth IV,  and for which he was knighted 
with much pomp and circumstance in 1966. He stopped once in Sydney in the 
circumnavigation.

This is very irritating to those who know it took much longer for Sir Robin 
Knox-Johnstone to become recognised and knighted (in 1995) ...and without the 
media interest and pomp and ceremony afforded Chichester,  yet he was teh 
first to sail non-stop and single handed  around the world in his boat Suhali 
in 1969!  

Similarly the unknown fruit and vegatable merchnt Alec Rose from Portsmouth 
circumnavigated the world too a year later after various misfortunes made him 
unable to start until a year after Francis Chichester though he wanted to 
start at the same time, and he became knighted only after the world press 
took an interst in his personal achievement as a pensioner with a passion for 
single-handed long distance sailing who made it through grit and 
determination to complete the circumnavigatoin in hs relatively poorly 
equipped boat compared to Chichester.

His flight from New Zealand to Australia across the Tasman Sea in a Gypsey 
Moth float aeroplane in 1931 is much less well known but is by far the most 
amazing navigational feat for which he received the Johnston memorial Trophy 
for Navigation in 1931.   In my view it was an astonishing achievement 
requiring great courage and determination, but was nevertheless utterly 
foolish and reckless in a single engined aeroplane which already had engine 
problems with compression and valve troubles. By accounts he was a strange 
irrascible man but very determined.

It this flight and its description which made me very interested in the Bygrave slide rule.
It is described in his book "The Lonely Sea and the Sky"  first printed 1964;  
in Chapter 11 'The Tasman Sea'.

He also describes the flight from Norfolk Island to Lord Howe Island in some 
detail, with an accompanying chart in  "The Observer's Book on 
Astro-Navigation"  Part four.

These Observer's Books were published from 1940 and during the war to assist 
the navigators recruited into the RAF.  Chichester wanted to be a pilot but 
the RAF excluded him from operational flying because of his poor 
eyesight(needing glasses) for which he was very discontented and bitter. He 
was an instuctor of navigators.
In the Observers books he describes himself also as Air Navigation Specialist, 
Henry Hughes and Son Ltd. .. which ties in with the description given to me 
by the gentleman who gave me the sextants who worked at Henry Hughes.

There were four of the Observer's Books on Astro- Navigation; I have copies of them here. 

I admire Chichester's navigation exploits very highly, but do not admire the man by all accounts of him.


Douglas Denny.

Chichester. England.


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