Eric B. Forsyth

Eric B. Forsyth was born in England, and attended Bolton School and Manchester University where he joined the University Air Squadron. After graduating in Electrical Engineering he completed RAF pilot training and was posted to a fighter squadron. He was awarded the City of Manchester Flying Trophy in 1956. When Britain reduced her armed forces, he immigrated to Canada and obtained a commercial pilot’s license, rated for single and multi-engine land and sea planes. Unfortunately, good flying opportunities did not appear.

He enrolled in Toronto University Engineering Graduate School and was later hired to join the Scientific Staff of Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, where he worked on applications of superconductivity and particle accelerators. He worked there for 35 years, eventually being appointed Chair of the Accelerator Development Department, which was responsible for the pre-construction planning and design of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), now the most powerful nuclear physics research tool in the United States.

Once established on Long Island, Eric enthusiastically took up sailing. His first sailboat was a 16-foot daysailer, but he soon advanced to ocean sailing. He currently sails a 42-foot cutter, Fiona, which he built himself from a bare fiberglass hull. His accomplishments with this boat, which include two circumnavigations of the globe and cruises to polar waters and through the Northwest Passage, resulted in the award of the prestigious Blue Water medal from the Cruising Club of America.

His sailing adventures are recounted in his book, "An Inexplicable Attraction: My Fifty Years of Ocean Sailing," which was included in Kirkus Review’s 100 Best Memoirs of 2018. He published his first novel, "Wings over Iraq," in 2020, inspired by stories he heard as a young man told by old-timers on his RAF squadron who had served in Iraq before WWII. His second novel, "Wings Over the Channel," follows the turbulent time in Britain before the start of WWII when the British were desperately trying to develop a radar defense system.