A new biography of the sailing legend Uffa Fox — the first for 50 years — will be launched in Cowes.

Fox was a celebrated and successful yacht designer. Much more than a sailor and boat designer, he was an irrepressible extrovert and novel thinker, as well as a singer, musician, journalist, author, painter, sportsman, campaigner, controversial businessman and friend of royalty.

In the years since his death, his reputation has grown rather than diminished.

Cowes-based author Malcolm Turner traced many of Uffa’s friends and former employees to compile this new assessment of the man who changed sailing for ever.

UFFA – Yachting’s Eccentric Genius, will be launched at Medina Bookshop, High Street, Cowes, at 6pm on Friday, June 2.