A sailing Rear-Admiral who survived threats of beheading, starvation and disease, while being held in a Japanese POW camp in World War II, has died at the age of 92.

James Harkness was introduced to sailing on a cruise to Brittany in 1933. It inspired a lifelong love of yachting.

At the end of the war he and his wife Grace raced dinghies in Malta. He is survived by his wife and their two daughters.