Mike Richey, the veteran solo sailor and celebrated navigator, has died at the age 92 after a heart attack at his home in Brighton.

Born in Eastbourne, on July 6, 1917, Mike Richey was famous on the solo sailing circuit as the slowest and most gentlemanly skipper of the engineless, junk-rigged Folkboat-style vessel, Jester. Originally she was sailed in the first solo transatlantic race in 1960 by Blondie Hasler, from whom Mike bought her after the 1964 race. He sailed her in six subsequent Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Races, until he was forced to abandon her in July 1988, when a rogue wave smashed a hatch, leaving the boat open to the seas some 500 miles south-east of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The boat was finally lost under tow. She was not insured and Mike was in no position to replace her.