"In June1937, my father (T Harrison Butler) and my brother Eric and I sailed in Vindilis from the Hamble to Falmouth and in the Carrick Roads we saw a very beautiful yacht sailing. She was a newly built vessel, "Windstorm", designed by Brooks Richards (Sir Brooks Richards later after a distinguished career in the SOE and the diplomatic service.) At that time he was a boy of 19 and he visited us aboard Vindilis - as people do. I myself was also 19 - nearly 20 and I thought ‘why shouldn’t I design a boat?’

When we returned home I got out a piece of arithmetic paper with 1/4 in. squares and drew freehand a sheer plan and mid-ship section and a few more construction lines before transferring to a drawing board at a scale of one inch to one foot.

The design took a long time because I was working for physiotherapy exams. My father was on hand if I needed advice but I had lived all my life with his designs in progress and watched him and discussed things with him so that I didn’t often have to call upon him. When I married and went away from Hampton-in-arden with no design facilities, I had not drawn the keel, the sail-plan or the accommodation plan and these were done by my father.

When it came to doing the metacentric analysis I found I had been lucky and didn’t have to alter a thing! Beginners Luck?

The design was completed in 1938. After my marriage I visited my parents when my husband had to go abroad and inked in the drawing and then THB. completed it. It was published in Yachting Monthly in November 1939."