The Queen of Whale Cay - Tapa blanda

A fascinating biography of the woman champion motorboat racer of the 1920s who in the ’30s bought and became ‘ruler’ of an island in the British West Indies.

’Joe’ Carstairs was born in London in 1900, the daughter of a Scottish colonel and an American heiress. Educated in Connecticut, she returned to Europe in 1916 and drove ambulances for the Women’s Legion in France. She deserted her husband at the church door (marriage was a prerequisite of her coming into her $4 million inheritance) and settled in England where she took up racing, established a boat yard at Cowes and won nearly every trophy going. In the 30s she started travelling widely, finally moving to the West Indies where she bought the island of Whale Cay. There she developed the island into a populated community, building everything from roads and schools to lighthouses and churches. Carstairs then suceeded in establishing hegemony over the 500 islanders, controlling not only their sexual morals but also their diet. In 1944 she built a deepwater harbour for the Royal Navy’s use and, without a word to her population, left the island to build warcraft in Florida, where she settled for 40 years, having run a steamship freightline and set up a chain of airports. Kate Summerscale’s brilliant biography brings out of obscurity a woman whose very boldness took her beyond fame and notoriety.

The eccentric story of 'Joe' Carstairs, fastest woman on water.

Joe Carstairs was renowned in the 1920s as an ‘invert’ who smoked cheroots and dressed as a man, as an heiress to the Standard Oil fortune and as the fastest female speedboat racer in the world. In 1934 she disappeared to embark on a course even more ambitious and bizarre: she bought an island in the West Indies and created her own kingdom, founding and ruling a colony of 500 black Bahamians.

In the island of Whale Cay, Joe Carstairs fiercely guarded her privacy and exercised absolute power. She demanded obedience and moral virtue from her people while herself continuing to live exactly as she pleased. And though she entertained actresses, duchesses and priests, she reserved her greatest love for her boats, her cars and the enigmatic Lord Tod Wadley.

When Carstairs died in 1993, aged 93, she was all but forgotten. Kate Summerscale was assigned to write her obituary for the Daily Telegraph, and determined afterwards to discover more about her life. This is her story.