Major Robin Rising, Royal Marine who later breathed new life into the Royal Yacht Squadron

Yahoo

06-02-2025

Major Robin Rising, who has died aged 90, spent 18 years in the Royal Marines before becoming secretary of the Royal Yacht Squadron, which he helped to turn into a modern yachting organisation.
Rising was appointed secretary of the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1980 when Sir John Nicholson was Commodore and John Roome was Rear Commodore Yachting. The squadron was in a poor financial state and only Roome knew the squadron well; he later described it as the blind leading the blind, but the triumvirate brought a rush of dynamism and creative ideas.
Rising's priority was to modernise the castle on West Cowes, the squadron's headquarters, by installing new heating and replacing the leaking sash windows, encouraging members to start going to the club again.
Inheriting a part-time assistant and a part-time typist, he recruited a proper administrative staff and simplified the accounting system which used to take hours to reconcile each week.
His new recruits were organised, cheerful, smart and energetic, and Rising's leadership soon generated an esprit de corps which made the castle a happier and more welcoming place.
His relations with members were conducted with charm, mixed where necessary with polite firmness, and he maintained the highest standards, starting with his own immaculate dress.
He was appointed LVO and retired in 2000.
Robert 'Robin' Philip Rising was born on May 1 1934 in Bristol, where his father was a manager at British American Tobacco. From the age of four, after his parents' divorce, he was brought up by his mother with her parents in the New Forest, and at 13 he was sent to Pangbourne Nautical College, where he rose to be captain of sailing.
In 1952, inspired by his uncle, Captain Humphrey Woods RM, who was killed in action in HMS Exeter at the Battle of the River Plate, he chose to do his National Service with the Royal Marines.
In 1953, after landing craft training, Rising served two years in 2nd Raiding Squadron in Malta, and passed the Commando Course in 1955.
With a cheque for £100 on his 21st birthday he bought a Firefly dinghy and towed it to races around the country behind a 1934 London taxi, and when appointed in 1956 to the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, he took both with him.
Next, he commanded the 117-foot Ford-class patrol craft Ickford, attached to the amphibious warfare squadron based in Malta. For a passage from Plymouth to the Mediterranean, rather than risk the weather in the Atlantic, Rising endured the ribaldry of his fellow officers for taking Ickford through the French canals.
Once in Malta, for his call on the admiral he was a rowed by two marines in Ickford's dinghy across Grand Harbour to the flagship. There the companion ladder's platform proved too high and Rising, having first handed up his sword was obliged to clamber up, under the eyes of the admiral and a ceremonial party.
His operational task in Ickford was to reconnoitre ahead of the larger, slower landing craft and vector them onto their beach landing sites: being faster, Rising and his crew of Royal Marines often had the advantage of starting their 'runs ashore' a day or so before everyone else.
In 1960 Rising became ADC to the Governor of Malta, Admiral Sir Guy Grantham, and in 1962 he became an instructor at the Commando Training Centre. He was one of the guards who mounted watch in Westminster Hall over Winston Churchill's coffin in 1965.
He saw action, as adjutant of 45 Commando, in Dhala during the Aden Emergency, where, as a forward air controller, he called the RAF for strikes. Years later at dinner he met one of the pilots who recognised his voice.
Rising was amphibious operations officer in the commando carrier Albion, and his final appointment was as amphibious plans officer on the staff of the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic in Norfolk, Virginia.
In the Royal Marines and at the RYS, Rising was noted for always looking on the bright side of life: in retirement his dog walks took ages while he stopped to chat to those he had befriended.
He married first, in 1961, Sarah Montgomery, and secondly, in 1993, Briony Lovell, who predeceased him in 2014. He is survived by three sons and a daughter of the first marriage.
Major Robin Rising, born May 1 1934, died December 18 2024