Lockabey, Longtime Sailing Writer, Dead at 85

Almon Lockabey, who covered sailing for The Times and the Daily Pilot, died Friday after a long illness. He was 85.

Lockabey, a Newport Beach resident, began covering sailing in the late 1940s for the San Bernardino Sun. In 1958, he moved to the Daily Pilot in Costa Mesa and also was a stringer for The Times and the Associated Press. He covered sailing at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics for the Pilot and Associated Press, as well as the 1967 and 1971 America’s Cup races.

In 1986, Lockabey was awarded the Ed Kennedy Trophy for outstanding service to yachting by the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club, and in 1988 he earned a similar award, the Jim Webster Trophy, from the Southern California Yachting Assn.

He was once called “the one consistent voice for yachting” by Loren Weiss, then president of the Newport Sailing Assn. “I think he knows everybody in the sport and over the course of years has generated tremendous respect and knowledge,” Weiss said in 1990.