The Sailing Surgeon: Dr Robin Tattersall
By Claudia Colli
The British Virgin Islands has been a sailing mecca for cruising yachtsmen for over five decades, and Robin Tattersall has been there since the beginning. BVI surgeon, OBE and Caribbean yachtsman, Dr. Robin Tattersall, is virtually synonymous with BVI sailing. He launched one of the first bare boat companies in the mid-1960s, at a time when the BVI was barely on the nautical map. And he was at the inaugural BVI Spring Regatta in 1972, one of a dozen or so participants that year in what was to become one of the Caribbean’s premier racing events. Over the decades he has continued to impact both the sailing and medical communities.
A man of multiple and unexpected talents, Robin put himself through medical school by modeling for the famed fashion photographer, Richard Avedon. In an iconic Paris photo shoot he twirled around the city’s streets on roller skates with the era’s best known fashion model, Suzy Parker. The series was among Avedon’s most memorable fashion photographs. But the lure of medicine was stronger than a life in fashion. So in 1965, having completed his medical qualifications in the UK, Tattersall signed on as Government Surgeon in the British Virgin Islands, a little known group of Caribbean islands half way across the world. Already an enthusiastic yachtsman, his visions of swaying palms and warm weather sailing was a siren call he couldn’t resist.
He booked passage aboard a banana boat, and along with his wife Jill and young sons, headed to his first port of call, St. Lucia in the Windward Islands; his sloop Summers Cloud aboard as deck cargo. There, the family rigged the sloop and sailed up the island chain until they reached Road Harbour – a quiet bay whose sleepy village of Road Town, abutted the shoreline. The hospital, built in the early 1900s, was strong and serviceable. In addition to his surgical duties, he started up a busy general practice tending the elderly and the young, setting broken arms and delivering babies.
Sailing, though, was in his DNA and in true pioneering spirit he started, along with his brother Ralph, the BVI’s first bareboat company in 1967. Comprised of three small sloops and based at the dock beneath Fort Burt Hotel on the western end of Road Town, the venture was ahead of its time. Within two years the company went under, but it paved way for subsequent bareboat companies like The Moorings, which took over their spot at the dock at Fort Burt with a half dozen boats, and is now one of the giants of the industry
Robin believes the first boat he sailed in the BVI Spring Regatta was a 20’ Squib, a two-man keel boat with a Bermudian rig. “The 15’ Bullseye sloop which I owned at that time was too small to qualify for the regatta,” he explained. The previous year he had raced the Bulls Eye in the first Round Tortola Race with Keith Mann, a young English doctor just out from the UK and who had signed on as the hospital’s first anesthetist, and became the talk of the racing set when he took a shortcut between Tortola and Beef Island, planning to drop the mast and duck under the drawbridge joining those two islands. The bridge keeper got wind of his plans and decided to help by opening the bridge as they approached – “ably assisted” by several of his east End patients. “The Sailing instructions said nothing about going around Beef Island,” remarked Robin.
Always a wooden boat enthusiast, he became a serious contender in the Spring Regatta in 1974 after purchasing the 36 ft Herreshoff ketch Galatea. He raced her in many of the region’s regattas for the rest of the ‘70s and early ‘80s including the Spring Regatta, the Rolex Cup and Antigua Sailing Week. In the early 80’s he raced in Incision, one of the early J24s, and in 1984 and ’85 on Expression, an Express 27, in which he was the overall winner in both Rolex Regatta and Antigua Sailing Week. After Galatea was wrecked in Hurricane Hugo in 1989, he replaced her with Firebird, a 1934 Alden yawl, and also in the 90s with one of the first Melges 24s. Never one to slow down with time, at the age of 75, the indefatigable sailor raced in the 2005 Rolex Transatlantic Challenge in Mariella, a 1938 yawl. At the helm for much of the race, Robin describes the voyage as an epic experience that he will never forget, quipping, “During one storm we were under so much water that my life jacket self inflated and pinned me down in the cockpit.”
In 1999 he bought Diva, a 30 square meter sloop which, like him, was built in 1930 and has raced her ever since. He has frequently won her class in the Antigua Classic Regatta and other events. Although he has never won the overall prize at the Spring Regatta, he has won in class on several occasions. Always one for firsts, he was a member of the BVI’s Olympic sailing team when the BVI sent its first delegation to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and was the oldest competitor in the 1992 Games in Barcelona, both times competing in the Soling Class and placing fourth and fifth in the last two fleet races. According to Tattersall his 30-year period as an ISAF (International Sailing Federation) judge was “one of my more important contributions to yachting – although I enjoyed the racing much more.”
In addition to sailing, Robin Tattersall has been an avid rugby player and supporter, and in 1967 had been a founding member of the BVI Rugby Club. Known for its dominating tactics and exuberant enthusiasm, the Club has vanquished a variety of opponents throughout the Caribbean, as well as, with pride, teams from the Royal Navy.
Over the years, Robin Tattersall has been a man of numerous accomplishments, most notably in the medical field. He went from Government Surgeon to founding the noted Bougainvillea Clinic in the late 70s (known locally as the Purple Palace for its purple paint job and eclectic appearance) and developing an international clientele for his cosmetic and other plastic surgery work. He has also generously donated his time and expertise in reconstructive surgery for congenital and other defects in both children and adults. Over the years he has developed a loyal and devoted following of patients throughout the BVI – some of which had been under his care for 50 years. Retired from his medical practice in 2015, he now divides his time between Brewers Bay on Tortola and Massachusettes. At the age of 80 he took up marathon walking and is now devoting his attention to restoring a classic1898 (24’ 6”) Herreshoff racing sloop.
In 2011 Dr. Tattersall received the OBE from Queen Elizabeth for his work in medicine, international yachting and community service. It is a fitting tribute to a man who sailed into the British Virgin Islands over five decades ago and made a lasting impact on these islands on both land and at sea.
