Frank Dye was a small-boat adventurer known for his intrepid open-sea passages in his 16ft wooden Wayfarer dinghy, Wanderer.
In the 1960s and 1970s he covered tens of thousands of miles on daring voyages to Iceland, Norway and the Arctic. Sheltering on the wooden floorboards under a storm cover while the elements raged around him and the waves grew to the height of the mast, Dye helped illustrate the possibility of such adventures without the technology — and expense — of larger boats.
Dye was born in Watton, Norfolk in 1929 and went to Hammond’s Grammar School, in Swaffham. His father, also Frank Dye, was a motor engineer and his family owned a motor business. Dye began cruising with weekend passages along the coast of England, starting in North Norfolk and the Wash before venturing further afield. The family’s motor business meant there was an ample supply of vehicles and drivers to shuttle him and his dinghies to and from points of departure and arrival. Dye sailed a number of Wayfarers over the course of his career but Wanderer, the boat that he was to sail for many years and on some of his best-known voyages, was built in 1958. The Wayfarer, a 15ft 10in Bermudan rigged quarter-decked boat, was designed by Ian Proctor in 1957.
In 1960 Dye made his first long crossing from Lowestoft to the Dutch Coast and then north across the German Bight to Kristiansand, Norway, with John Buckingham as crew. Three years later he and his crew, Russell Brockbank, made an 11-day, 650-mile passage in Wanderer from Kinlochbervie in Scotland, to Iceland. They were equipped with a compass and sextant for navigation, using the stars to guide them on clear nights.
The conditions were often extreme and Dye’s logbook told of some of the difficulties and miseries they faced. On one occasion, with 15ft seas and rain beating down, Dye attempted to clean the filter of the bilge pump which was blocked with fluff, raisins and matchsticks. “When I had fitted it I had never expected to be lifting the floorboards in a Force 7 gale in the middle of the North Atlantic. Russell watched me with suspicion but without comment — good man!” He had to stretch across the slippery varnished decks to unshackle the jib before a gale broke and the seas began roaring by. The two men lowered the mast and allowed the dinghy to ride a drogue, taking shelter under the storm cover . Dye recalled heating soup — which they could not keep down — over the Outer Bailey Banks (nicknamed the Lousy Banks) and lying on hard, cold floorboards listening to the whining wind and the boom of the waves hitting the hull. He wrote too of the periods of sailing in brilliant sunshine which made the physical and mental exhaustion of the voyages worthwhile.
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In 1964 he crossed the North Sea again from Kinlochbervie to Norway with a companion, Bill Brockbank. Shortly after they left the Faroes they heard a gale warning and for more than 24 hours were engulfed in a storm which climbed up to Force 9 on the Beaufort Scale. The waves grew to more than 35ft and they capsized four times. Exhausted, the two men tied themselves to the boat and, swimming alongside, managed to bale it out. The mast broke twice. However, the boat and crew eventually arrived battered in Ålesund, Norway, where people welcomed them with dry clothes and hot food.
In 1965 Dye made a honeymoon voyage from Skye to St Kilda with his new wife, Margaret, who he had met at the Earl’s Court Boat Show. A year later they sailed together from Scotland to Iceland and across the Norwegian Sea up the coast of Arctic Norway to North Cape.
In the following two decades Dye sailed the length of the East Coast of North America from Florida to Labrador. In 1989 he was inducted to the Hall of Fame in the American Small Boat Journal for his outstanding contribution to small boat sailing.
Along with his wife Margaret, Dye helped popularise the Wayfarer class, a seaworthy, family dinghy whose design has endured well. They started a tradition of Wayfarer cruising and meets. Members of the UKWA regularly sail across the Channel, the Irish Sea and around the Baltic ports in Wayfarers.
Dye wrote several books about his exploits including Ocean Crossing Wayfarer (1977) and Sailing to the Edge of Fear (1999). In 1974 he left his job in mechanical engineering and set up a canal boat firm, living in a caravan while he started it from scratch. After retiring he lived in a fisherman’s cottage at Wells-next-the-Sea.
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Wanderer is now held in a permanent collection at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.
Dye is survived by his wife Margaret.
Frank Dye, dinghy pioneer, was born on April 28, 1929. He died on May 16, 2010