Morin Scott MBE, FNI

Born in Glasgow in 1922, Morin entered the Royal Naval College with St Vincent Term in January 1936. At the college he took every opportunity to get afloat on the Dart, where he enjoyed sailing various service boats, and successfully raced his National Twelve. Unfortunately at the end of his time there he was incorrectly diagnosed as suffering from an acute eyesight problem, and this killed off his career hopes. The outbreak of war a few weeks after the end of his last term found him racing six-metres on the Clyde. There he caught the eye of a sympathetic retired Naval Captain, who considered that his boathandling skills and enthusiasm were of more import than the opinions of the medical branch, and anachronistically ‘nominated’ him into the armed merchant cruiser HMS Worcestershire as a ‘T124′ RNR midshipman. As a result he went to sea not only well before the rest of his term, but on a higher rate of pay. Subsequently he transferred to the RNR proper, and amongst other adventures was sunk minesweeping in the corvette HMS Auricula during the 1942 invasion of Vichy-held Madagascar.

Peace took him back to sailing, first of all skippering the 50 square metre ‘Windfall’ yachts Seetaube (now Disdaine) and Zeisig (now Sea Scamp) from Kiel, and it is nice to report that over 60 years later both boats are still going strong. After that he cruised and raced his Dragon, Gerda, with, Conni van Rietschoten as his regular crew. Conni went on to achieve lasting fame by winning the Round the World race twice, but always said that Cape Horn and the Southern Ocean was nothing compared to Gerda’s passage across a stormy North Sea.

Marriage prompted a temporary move to motor-racing, notably in a huge 8-litre Hispano-Suiza. When he returned to sailing it was in the field of sail training, and this started when he found that the Sea Cadet Corps had no plans for an entry in the 1966 Tall Ships’ Race. Irritated by their lack of initiative he arranged to borrow the little brigantine Centurion from a fellow Royal Cruising Club member, and with the able assistance of Cdr Tony Armitage (SCC Training Commander and a term-mate), he found a cadet crew, and went on to have a very successful race. The experience of the value of sail training for young people was a revelation for him. In short order thereafter he decided that the SCC needed their own vessel, which should be a brig, got his friend Colin Mudie to produce the designs for TS Royalist, and cajoled the SCC Headquarters into accepting the idea. He also browbeat the Royal Navy and The Daily Mirror Group into putting up half the cost of the project between them, thus ensuring the necessary initial financial backing. To judge his boldness, it should be realised that back in 1971 no square rigger had been built for Britain since 1907, and none had been on the British register since 1936, while brig rig was both extinct, and widely considered too complex. His success may be judged by the fact that, 38 years on, TS Royalist is still going strong, and brig rig has enjoyed a world-wide revival.

He then joined the Jubilee Sailing Trust, when it was distinctly unfashionable, and persuaded them that square rig was ideal for their physically-disabled and able-bodied partnership concept. Although well into his sixties he took on the physically demanding role of Mate for the proving trials in the brigantine Søren Larsen, before collaborating with Colin Mudie on the design of innovative barque Lord Nelson. Next he moved on to the British-Australian Bicentennial Schooner project, which under his influence became the brigantine Young Endeavour. He also helped his friend Manfred Hövener establish the case for the Alexander von Humboldt being a barque rather than a schooner, a move which all have since come to applaud. By then deemed too old to sail in any UK vessel, he was made welcome by the Germans, with whom he did his last Tall Ships’ Race at the age of seventy-three. Finally he was involved with the design of the only white ‘ensign’ square rigger, the Indian Navy’s barque INS Tarangini.

His epitaph lies in those who have benefited from his sail training projects.