Yesterday Moore, 85, brought her boat Why to the start-line off the Royal Yacht Squadron for her 57th consecutive year of racing in one of the most competitive classes at Cowes Week.
“I just love racing and I’m still up for a few parties,” she said, by way of explaining her remarkable record.
Moore bought the 26ft sloop in 1946; the boat was built in 1935, but was stored during the second world war and looked like new when she bought it.
“I was 28 and quite young to be buying my own boat,” admitted Moore, who caught the sailing bug while crewing on her father’s yacht before the war.
“She cost me £500. Most of the other Sunbeam people were husband-and-wife teams, so it was unusual to have a young woman as owner and skipper.”
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However, as with many women of her generation, Moore had an active war in the Motor Transport Corps and wasn’t about to sit ashore embroidering while the men went off sailing.
In fact, she married in the year of her first Cowes Week competition, but her husband, Thomas, and racing were kept in entirely separate compartments of her life.
“Thomas was a keen sailor and had a nine-ton Hillyard (a traditional heavily-built wooden yacht) but was much keener on cruising. He liked his comfort,” Moore recalled. “I raced with a variety of different crews over the years and did quite well occasionally.”
Very well, actually. Most of the trophies in the Sunbeam fleet — now split between Itchenor in Sussex and Falmouth in Cornwall — have her name inscribed somewhere on the silverware. The class is enjoying its 80th anniversary of racing at Cowes Week this year. The classically elegant design, by Alfred Westmacott, who also created the seemingly immortal X-One Design model, is easily recognised by its towering mast and tall, thin mainsail.
Class rules specify that every boat name must end in ‘Y’ — hence Danny, Daisy, Clarry et al — and that the hull must be of wood, meaning that such new boats as are occasionally commissioned now cost in the region of £50,000 to build.
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“We’ve never had any serious damage, bar losing a wooden mast once in a gale, but I have seen a few other Sunbeams sink over the years,” Moore said. “Nowadays if it’s really blowing hard and raining I claim the privilege of age and stay ashore, but generally I aim to race every day with my cousin, David Miller, and his wife.”
With little patience for nostalgia, Moore rates most of the changes which she has seen over half a century of competing at Cowes Week as improvements.
“Things like protective clothing and life jackets are so much better,” she said. “Those big old things around your neck were awful. You could hardly move in the boat.
“In the old days, when you came ashore you used to have to rush off and dress up in white trousers and a blazer just to go for a drink.”
However, one change she does regret is the end of the Royal Yacht Britannia being anchored off the Squadron. “It’s such a disappointment that the Royal Family don’t come any more,” she said before rushing off to prepare for a week’s hard racing.