Pat Loseby, Hong Kong's first female solicitor and a sporting trailblazer, has come home to the harbour. Loseby's ashes were scattered there yesterday as the boats of her 'family' of fellow yachties circled in formation and an era came to an end.
Loseby died in England at the age of 75 in January. In Hong Kong, she was a pioneer for women in sport and the law, as the SAR's first female solicitor and winner of a 'friendly battle' to allow women full membership of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.
Loseby became an institution at the club, where there is a room named after her - and a hot rum cocktail named after her dragonboat, Hoi Loong, meaning sea dragon.
It took her 30 years of being a 'lady subscriber' to become a full member in 1977. However, in 1990, the yacht club awarded her the title vice-patron - the biggest honour available to anyone who was not actually Queen Elizabeth, the then patron.
Loseby had other titles. Her Chinese friends called her Screwdriver, the word her surname sounded like in Cantonese. She was also known as the Dragon Lady for running the dragonboat class with a firm but kind hand.
In her early days at the club, according to the club's magazine, she was jokingly called 'the lady licensed to solicit' because of her admission in 1953 as Hong Kong's first woman solicitor.