Bermuda Olympian Edward John ‘JT’ Thompson has died, aged 68.The sailor, who represented the Island at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, passed away early yesterday morning, after battling cancer for the past year and a half.As famous for his bow ties as for his adventures on the water, Thompson led a Boys Own life that took him from fighting in Aden to navigating the Atlantic using just the stars and a transistor radio.Born in Bermuda on November 17, 1942, Thompson attended Dellwood, Whitney and Saltus schools before he was shipped off to England at the age of 10.It was during his time in the UK that he first got his first taste of sailing at the age of 12, but just three years later he ran away and joined the RAF, lying about his age to sign up as an engineer.His career in the forces took him to the Middle East where he continued his love affair with boats, sailing Finns competitively during his service.Although signed up as an engineer, Thompson switched to a search and rescue unit whose main focus was rescuing the crews of stricken submarines.Caught up in the Cold War conflict in South Arabia during the 1960s, Thompson was awarded a medal for his actions during the fighting in Aden.At the end of his RAF career, he returned to Bermuda in the 1970s, where he quickly became a recognised figure within the Island’s sailing community.Thompson was famous for sailing anything that floated, and competed in, among other things, Lasers, Finns, Solings, Fitted Dinghys, Sunfish, J105s and J20s.It was in Finns though, which he sailed throughout his RAF career, that he felt most at home and he represented Bermuda in that class at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. Three years later, alongside Alex Cooper and Hamish Burns, he represented the Island at the Pan-Am Games in Solings.He would have gone on to attend a second Olympics but missed out due to the boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980.Outside of Olympic competitition, Thompson also competed in several Marion to Bermuda races, the last of which he raced in in 2007, as well taking part in Newport to Bermuda and International Race Weeks as well.He had few scrapes in those races to compare with his adventure on the Atlantic in 1983, when a lightning strike crippled his ship’s communication systems. On a journey that usually took five days, Thompson and his crew were gone for little more than two weeks.Using a transistor radio, Thompson would find a station and sail in the direction that the signal seemed to be the strongest. Using this method, and the stars, Thompson and his crew eventually found their way back to Bermuda.As involved with sailing off the water as on it, Thompson was Commodore of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club from 1992 until 1994, and oversaw the Queen’s visit during the club’s 150th anniversary celebrations.Thompson leaves behind wife Denise, daughters Nina and Erika, his sister Sue Curry, and sister-in-law, Sheila Thompson.