FORMER Christchurch Sailing Club commodore Rick Thompson died peacefully at home on August 23, aged 74, following a courageous battle with cancer.

He took the helm at the 153-year-old club in 2009 and held the post until 2012, a period which saw the acquisition of more than 100 boat moorings in the Stour and secured the club’s future.

Born in Southbourne, Mr Thompson attended Portchester School in Portchester Road, Boscombe, before starting an apprenticeship at the De Havilland factory at RAF Christchurch.

At the age of 15 he was the European Junior Fishing Champion, beginning a long-standing association with watersports.

Qualifying as a tool maker, he worked for the Ministry of Defence into the 1980s, and also ran a tool shop. Using his knowledge he built three of the homes he lived in with his family.

On leaving the MOD, Mr Thompson began working as a taxi driver in the Bournemouth area, and was widely known in the industry as ‘Desperate Dan’ due to what was considered among his peers to be a fair resemblance to the popular comic character.

He continued his work as a cabbie for some two decades.

He met his wife Diana, known to many at the club as ‘Blue’, in Charminster when she was 13, and the pair married four years later. They had two children, Julia and Duncan, and eventually four grandchildren.

Mr Thompson joined Christchurch Sailing Club in the 1980s, at around the same time as he bought the boat with which he became closely associated.

He sailed regularly on his beloved Parker Super Seal ‘Kotick’ for the rest of his life, and was even a member of the Parker and Seal Association.

As well as overseeing the realisation of the club’s long-harboured ambitions to secure more moorings, in the form of 120 slots bought from Bournemouth and West Hants Water in 2010, Mr Thompson was also instrumental in the quay wall construction.

A regular participant in the social activities of the club, Mr Thompson often went out sailing with friends, but would also take his boat out on solo journeys.

He enjoyed racing but was more commonly found cruising in the Channel, sailing along the south west coast of England or the northern coast of Brittany and Normandy in France.

He was described by friends as a “very generous and open” man, although he could come across as a little quiet at first, even forbidding, but with “a heart of gold”.

A funeral service for Mr Thompson will be held on Wednesday, September 10, from 10.30am at Bournemouth Crematorium.