The Boss?

[jb5]

How cool is this?

 

[Swanno]

Time to drop a few kegs matey.

Cracking shot though

 

[10thTonner]

Excuse me Mr. Thomson! The keel is on the other side of the boat.

 

[Presuming Ed]

There's a man who understands what his job is.

 

[forss]

New "mast walk" video is coming in a few days.

Meanwhile enjoy it:

 

[forss]

 

[bgulari]

Looking forward to the video because I can't see a safety line, also it looks like the boat is going sideways versus forward. Some ingenious trickery to keep it at the same relative angle to the wind while slipping

 

[Soley]

Wonder what happened if there was a lull. Interested to see the vid

 

[QBF]

The Mast Walk by Alex Thomson - The Video

 

[MR.CLEAN]

looking for the trickery and not finding it...

 

[bgulari]

Damn Impressive they did not stall out and round up.

 

[robalex117]

So cool. So is Alex. Two summers ago he was in NYC with one of his boats and through a contact we arranged a visit. Went down in three ribs from LIS with about 15 kids and got a full on tour of the boat. Alex spent over three hours going over the boat, explaining all the parts and then gave everybody a lesson on his electronics and nav station down below. The shore crew was busy getting everything set for their record attempt but they were also very patient with everybody.

He plugged in some stuff into his routing program with a course across the pond, and the routing program said he would set the record. (Alex was in NYC to set the record sailing across.) And net net when it was all done he actually set the record.

 

[DtM]

Said it often .... you might criticise his sailing ability (although in my view you would be wrong) but you just cannot beat him for his sponsor and general sailing PR work.

Well done Alex

 

[ncsc2]

What's to criticize? The guy is cool!!!

I'd love to see Larry Ellison walk off the end of a mast, just to change the subject.

 

[Keith]

Excellent marketing, this is the kind of stuff non-sailors will look at.... well done.

 

[Blitz]

A class act and badass sailor. Well done sir!

 

[SCANAS]

Someone walked to the first spreader 10years ago on an open 50-60. Forget which boat though. It was on a promo vid.

Alex is an fantastic sailor. But as presuming ed said he understands how it all works.

 

[MFMG]

I've been a big fan of Alex Thompson for a while. This is a great stunt. It sounds kinda lame to call it a stunt though. Good job making your sponsors look brilliant. It's shot nicely and edited nicely. I dig the spray on his jacket in the lead up as well as his nonchalant jump onto #99.

But… I want to see his jump without the cut to the 2nd camera. It looked like he might have over rotated in the jump viewed from the heli. I wonder if he landed on his back in that first attempt and if there was a second jump. Whatever the case, he's a friggin' stud. Balls that clank and cool as hell...

 

[pasta514]

watching the video it seems before the jump they drop the keel to lower the jump height.

Still brilliant, notwithstanding.