The funeral of the first man to win round-the-world races in both directions will be held tomorrow.

John Chittenden, 70, was found dead in woodland near Totnes on Sunday March 27.

In 1989 he skippered the 80-foot Creighton’s Naturally to victory in the cruiser class of the Whitbread round-the-world race in an easterly direction.

Then four years later he won Sir Chay Blyth’s inaugural British Steel Challenge in the other direction on board Nuclear Electric, which saw him named the 1993 YJA Yachtsman of the Year.

Mr Chittenden’s son Stephen desxcribed him as ‘a great man, a great sailor and wonderful father and grandfather’.

He said: ‘He genuinely had hundreds of close friends in the sailing world and beyond.’

Mr Chittenden grew up in Sussex and became a master mariner in his early twenties after skippering oil tankers from the age of 17.

In the late 1980s he was cruising secretary of the RYA.

His funeral will be at St. Saviour’s Church in Dartmouth at 1430.

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