Chris Law was one of the most gifted racing sailors of his generation but his awkward temperament prevented him from fulfilling his early promise. Although he scaled some of the high peaks of world sailing, Law did not do his talent justice and in recent years had struggled to find a balance in his life. His untimely death came as he was trying to build a future outside sailing and followed years when he had struggled to reestablish himself as a big player, as befits a man who raced in the Olympics, helmed America’s Cup yachts, won the Admiral’s Cup and was acknowledged as one of the world’s top match-racers.

In some ways Law was his own worst enemy: a driven individual who set impossibly high standards for himself and those around him. He was highly critical of his own and others’ performances. Notoriously blunt, he gained a reputation for being a disruptive influence in a team and was frustrated at being passed over for many top roles in the past two decades.

Yet through all his personal crises, his natural ability shone, especially in the uniquely testing environment of match-racing where Law, the maverick skipper, and his crew of “outlaws”, among them the British sailors Andy Hemmings, James Stagg and Julian Salter, were feared by the world’s best and, on their day, could beat anyone.

Above all Law was a superb racing helmsman with a rare ability to drive a boat fast. He was regarded as one of the very best starters of a racing yacht with an excellent sense of time-on-dis-tance. A Law-helmed yacht would typically hit the line as the trigger was pulled on the starter’s gun and often at the climax of a daring approach. Law was always well prepared: he was ultra-competitive and a great reader of a race, always on top of his tactical options and fully conversant with the rules and their complexities.

While he was feared on the race course, he could be even more intimidating in the protest room, where sailors settle rules disputes before a jury after racing. Law was ruthless in pursuit of his own cause in the “room”, and as one former rival put it in tribute to him: “He was an absolute marvel on the water, an absolute bastard in the protest room.”

For a man who could be so hard on himself and others, Law was paradoxically an effective and patient teacher who was happy to spend hours and hours on the water guiding and instructing others, often the owners of the boats on which he was racing. Socially he was popular and could be great fun and he made friends, and lost them, all over the world.

In later years Law was a gifted TV commentator on America’s Cup and match racing, combining a rare mastery of sailing’s intricate rules and methodology with his determination to tell it as he saw it.

Born in 1952, Law started sailing as a boy at the Tamesis Club on the Thames at Teddington where he raced in Cadet dinghies with his brother, Tim. After schooling at Mill-field where he won a rugby scholarship and was a member of the English schools rugby team, he sailed Cadets at international level before making his name in the tough, single-handed Finn class dinghy.

In 1972 he narrowly lost the Olympic trials in Finns and ended up reserve, but in 1976, at 23, he became the youngest winner of one of sailing’s toughest titles, the Finn Gold Cup, or world championship. He missed out on Olympic selection in Finns to David Howlett in 1976 before his own Olympic opportunity came up at the 1980 Games in Moscow when the boycott over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan deprived him of a very strong medal chance. This, and the break-up of his first marriage in the mid1980s, were setbacks and disappointments that were to haunt him.

Law competed in Solings at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, finishing fourth. In 1983 he briefly helmed the America’s Cup yacht, Victory, owned by Peter de Savary and in 1987 he was the helm (but not skipper) on White Crusader, another America’s Cup campaigner owned by Graham Walker during the famous Cup regatta in Fre-mantle, Australia. In 1995 he helmed Syd Fischer’s Sydney ’95before leaving in acrimonious circumstances.

Law won numerous races in all sizes of boats from big maxis to small dinghies. Among his trophies were those for the Admiral’s Cup, the Sydney-to-Hobart race, the Fastnet race and the Round the Island race. He was world champion in the Etchells class and in recent years he won 12 Grade One match-racing titles with a highest finish on the match racing world tour of fourth overall in 2003.

Law was found dead at Lake Con-stance in Germany. He leaves two daughters by his first marriage.

Chris Law, professional sailor, was born on July 5, 1952. He died on July 24, 2007, aged 55