FAREWELL TO BOB

Former Consultant Editor of All At Sea ‘crosses the bar’

Bob Satchwell has died from pneumonia and Covid-19 age 72. He had a life-long passion for sailing and an illustrious career in the media.

Image: RNLI/John McCallion

Bob and First Mate Bull with Greek bar owner Yanni.

Bob with the All At Sea team on the Canal Du Midi in 2011. Matthew and Andrew, only found out after fi ve or so races that St Catherine’s Point was the second mark of the course not the fi rst. Bob’s cruising weekends were great fun, with a leisurely sail from the Port Solent base into Cowes on Friday night and then going west for Saturday night to Yarmouth, Lymington or Poole.

At the end of each sailing year an end of season dinner was held in The Old Crown. Misdemeanours on board were reviewed at a Court Martial conducted by Bob after dinner. One such notorious crime, that can be recorded here, was committed by a crew member who turned up for a weekend aboard with silk pyjamas. There were many hilarious offences committed over each sailing season, and they all refl ected Bob and his crew’s love of fun and enjoyment.

In January 2017, just before Bob became ill with a bleed on the brain, he purchased a Beneteau 351, Wild Thyme.

Bob chartered a number of yachts in Greece, fi rst with family and then with the Girton Vineyard Yacht Club members. Some of these charters were not without drama of course, which he recorded and embellished in the pages of All at Sea.

Bob died of pneumonia and Covid-19 on 2 March.

Girton Vineyard Yacht Club lives on with a number of its members continuing to holiday together in Greece each year.

“The annual Round the Island Race became the high point of Bob’s sailing year, when much fun was had, usually in the middle of the fl eet.”

Bob Satchwell was Consultant Editor of All At Sea for 15 years and a director and owner of All At Sea Publications Ltd since 2012. He was delighted to be able to combine his love for boating with his passion for news.

He enjoyed working with young, enthusiastic journalists during his time of leadership and thrived on passing on his knowledge and experience. Albeit the newspaper is a free publication, Bob always believed that editorial excellence should be at the heart of its success.

Bob sailed most weekends with family and friends and formed the Girton Vineyard Yacht Club, based in his home village just outside Cambridge.

Satchwell’s newspaper and media career

Bob was co-founder of the Society of Editors in 1999. He started as a reporter on the Lancashire Evening Post, went on to become assistant editor for the News of the World and then edited the Cambridge Evening News from 1984 to 1998. Ian Murray, who took over from Bob as executive director of the SoE, paid tribute to a “true giant of the industry”.

“I know I speak for the board and membership of the Society when I say we have lost one of the media’s greatest champions. The principles of a free press ran through his veins.

“Bob was one of life’s great communicators and this gift made him superbly able to fi ght his many battles on behalf of the press. From Leveson to the creation of IPSO, from threats to Freedom of Information, to the countless other attempts to stifl e free speech, Bob was always there in the fi ght. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude.”

The Society of Editors has members in national, regional and local newspapers, magazines, broadcasting and digital media, media law and journalism education. It campaigns for media freedom, the wider right to freedom of expression, freedom of information and the public’s right to know and for the maintenance of high media standards.

He was a member of the Editors’ Code Committee, which produces the newspaper and magazine industry’s Code of Practice that is policed by the Press Complaints Commission. He was chairman of the judges for the British Press Awards and a former board member of the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

Bob was Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards in 1977 and Crime Reporter of the Year the same year. He went to Fleet Street as assistant editor of the News of the World before returning to regional newspapers as editor of the Cambridge Evening News in 1984.

Bob was included in the Press Gazette Regional Newspapers 40 years Hall of Fame in 2006. He was awarded the Journalists’ Charity Chairman’s Award in the National Press Awards for 2012 and was awarded an International Writer’s Award by the International Council of Jurists and Writers in 2014.

During his tenure, the Cambridge Evening News was one of the most successful regional newspapers in Britain. It was Press Gazette Newspaper of the Year in its category for 1993 and Daily Newspaper of the Year in the BT Awards for the London and Homes Counties North region for 1994. It also won Newspaper Society prizes for best circulation increases in 1993, 1995, and 1996.

Bob’s sailing journey

Bob started sailing in France when he was on holiday with some school friends. They rented a house which had a Mirror Dinghy. He went on to crew for his brother, Chris, on 36ft yachts and Chris’s small cabin cruiser.

The enthusiastic brothers then bought several bigger yachts together as their families grew, including a Foxcub, Newbridge Venturer and a Moody 28.

In the early 90s, after Chris took on the role of Sailing School Principal with Sunsail, Bob purchased a Beneteau 305. This was an ex-Sunsail charter boat called Viane of Cowes. Viane’s fi rst sailings were with his family in the Solent, and then crossings to France. Bob’s beloved wife Michele, who died suddenly in 2015, was fi rst mate and his four children, Matthew, Andrew, Anna and Ellie, were his faithful crew.

Bob set up a sailing group called the Girton Vineyard Yacht Club. Its members were friends from his home village of Girton near Cambridge. The clubhouse was the bar in The Old Crown pub or any pub, restaurant, hotel or yacht club the crew visited in the Solent area.

The annual Round the Island Race became the high point of Bob’s sailing year, when much fun was had, usually in the middle of the fl eet. Bob’s two stepsons,