Brushes with fame?

benjenbav

benjenbav

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Well, sort of. For much of 2009 I had the great pleasure of regularly passing the Fairey Spearfish, Miss Daisy, on her mooring at Birdham. I did enjoy the recent article in MBY about her and, seen in the flesh, she was a credit to Jonathan Napier, her owner. Dunno if she's just out of the water at the moment or somewhere else. Used to be based in Antibes, I think?.

Anyway, at the weekend we were at Berthon in Lymington and there was Steve Dashew's Wind Horse. Looked like she was in for a refit but quite, quite magnificent.

Wish I had taken some pix.
 
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benjenbav said:
Well, sort of. For much of 2009 I had the great pleasure of regularly passing the Fairey Spearfish, Miss Daisy, on her mooring at Birdham. I did enjoy the recent article in MBY about her and, seen in the flesh, she was a credit to Jonathan Napier, her owner. Dunno if she's just out of the water at the moment or somewhere else. Used to be based in Antibes, I think?.

Anyway, at the weekend we were at Berthon in Lymington and there was Steve Dashew's Wind Horse. Looked like she was in for a refit but quite, quite magnificent.

Wish I had taken some pix.
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Ah. I thought you were going to say you'd had Pamela Anderson on your boat. Nick-H has had Rod Stewart on his which he reckons is better than my Ben Affleck, but I'm not sure

Miss Daisy was/is in SofF but not sure it was Antibes. There again, maybe she is in Antibes on t'north side and lost like needle in haystack among the huge number of berths over near the shipyard. I have a couple of pics of her (in Antibes actually). I'll dig out and post, though they wont show her leaping through the air with both props on show.

Wind Horse would be very nice to see. Is she out of the water at Berthon?
 
Thx Bajansailor for those links.

jfm: Wind Horse was out of the water, which gave me a chance to have a decent look at the underwater aspects. I think those stub keels are fixed - I originally thought they were stabs but they look like they work just like mini bilge keels on a sailboat. I would think the main keel into which the propshaft is set helps lateral stability and the length - which is the most striking thing about Wind Horse, very long and slim, must stabilise pitch. I guess the philosophy is KISS.

I wouldn't fancy conning her into a tight marina. I think she'd keep going straight a bit too long for my nerves to stand, what with that anchor sticking out prominently over the bow and the well-known issues of classic sailing yots which need to be warped around with an infinity of string. :D
 
PS How did you know I had that Pamela Anderson on the boat. I thought I'd managed to keep it all quiet. :D
 
PPS I'm deeply impressed about Ben Affleck. Not so much that you mention him; more that you mention it in preference to the time Alain Prost trailled you from one port to the next.

True fame though is surely tcm's encounter with Les Battersby.
 
jfm said:
Ah. I thought you were going to say you'd had Pamela Anderson on your boat. Nick-H has had Rod Stewart on his which he reckons is better than my Ben Affleck, but I'm not sure
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By strange coincidence we watched the film Daredevil on DVD tonight. I'd keep stum about Ben Affleck if I were you, after that performance :-)
 
benjenbav said:
PPS I'm deeply impressed about Ben Affleck. Not so much that you mention him; more that you mention it in preference to the time Alain Prost trailled you from one port to the next.

True fame though is surely tcm's encounter with Les Battersby.
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Ah yes, Prosty. Yes we berthed alongside him or on the same quay for about 10nights in a row when we both had obviously bought the same Michelin map to circumnavigate Corsica. Very nice chap, kindly lend me his hosepipe when ours bust. He has a ferretti 830, upgrade from 731 the year before. Talking of F1, I also had the chap who owns F1 on the boat last summer, a few times. Bernie's boss, if such a thing exists. We'd been looking at some other boats on a hot day and he came aboard for a drink. I poured him a pint of mineral water from a bottle of Evian in the fridge. Now, unbeknown to me, stewardess had discovered that the water condensate from the slide-out tank in the tumble drier was good for filling the iron and steam press, and she'd put it in this bottle. This might be technically "distilled water" but it has strong traces of Persil and much fluff, as you'd expect from the excretions of a tumble drier. Putting it in an Evian bottle in the fridge was not her smartest decision. Anyway, about 1/2 way thru his cold refreshing glass of, er, water, Mr Billionaire said "Tastes a bit soap-powdery Mr Wolf". I was also drinking a glass of the same dilute soap powder and the penny dropped with me at that moment. He was ok about it, after he'd got the fluff out of his teeth...

Anyway, yes, Les Battersby. That was hilarious. Les (Bruce Jones) has a AWB sloop in Conwy I think, so is into boats, and was on holiday in Spain and looking around the marina, and bumped into tcm in the bar. They chatted boats but tcm didn't have a clue who he was. tcm asked if he wanted to come on the boat with his mates. "How big is it?" asked Les, I mean Bruce. "23" replied tcm. "Oh, perhaps we'd better not," said Les, "it'd be a bit squashed." "Metres", said tcm. Bruce's jaw dropped and they had a fab afternoon on the boat
 
Mr Billionaire said "Tastes a bit soap-powdery Mr Wolf". I was also drinking a glass of the same dilute soap powder and the penny dropped with me at that moment. He was ok about it, after he'd got the fluff out of his teeth...
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Hahaha :)

I had a similar experience with soapy drinking water. I was in a meeting with the MD of a client co and he poured us each a glass of Perrier, which was actually Perrier but the glasses must not have been rinsed properly because we both sipped, then looked at each other aghast before:

Me: hmmm, about a 10:1 mix?

He: yes, a cheeky little concoction don'tcha think.

And the orignial tcm thread on Les Battersby:

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11799&highlight=les+battersby

Blimmin' good this new forum searchy stuff
 
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