Saturday 25 October 2014

Ben Ainslie on Southampton Water

To Southampton betimes, to a public house recommended by a person I met in the queue for saveloys at the Great River Race who informed me that the best home brewed ale in the city is to be found at the Platform Tavern in the ancient walls of that place, hard by the Dancing Man brewery.
We launched our boat, the Solent galley Langstone Lady, at Warsash and rowed to Town Quay, conveniently about 100 yards from the pub.
As we returned down Southampton Water, we spotted Sir Ben Ainslie hammering up the channel in his foiling America's Cup challenger.
I took this snap with my mobile phone, a Nokia Lumia 930. The resolution really is incredible - the view as we saw it from the boat was more like this:

6 comments:

MarioB said...

And what about the beer?

Chris Partridge said...

The most important question of all, which will be answered later...

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Mario got in just before me.. :o)

Nice pub - got there for the first time after this years boat show..

Tillerman said...

Ben is in the AC45 presumably? They are amazing machines when you see them racing up close. Had that pleasure at Newport a while back when the AC lollapalooza tour (or whatever it was called) staged some races there.

Bursledon Blogger said...

So did Ben drop in the Platform for a beer?

Chris Partridge said...

I think it was the AC45 - too far away to tell. One hull went up but I don't think it foiled while we were watching.
And no, he didn't pop in for a pint but I suspect negotiating that huge cat through the very narrow and bendy channel to the slipway would have taxed even Sir Ben's skills.