HE was the enigmatic yachtsman from Hamp-shire who enjoyed an adventurous life at sea.

Bennett Bevis crewed luxury vessels for some of the country’s most prominent businessmen during the 1950s and 1960s.

But he was most at home on his beloved Hamble River where he skippered yachts for some of his top employers, including business tycoon and millionaire Harry Hyams who built London’s Centre Point skyscraper.

Now the professional yachtsman’s sons have paid tribute to him as a “grand old man” in the wake of an inquest into his death.

The Southampton inquest heard how Mr Bevis, 90, was being led to a minibus waiting outside his home in Dodwell Lane, Hamble, to take him to a day centre on September 25 when he stumbled and hit his head.

He was taken to Southampton General Hospital but doctors decided that his wounds, age and frail state meant he would not survive an operation and he died later that day.

A post-mortem revealed Mr Bevis – who was registered blind ten years previously and had diabetes and high blood pressure – suffered a huge bleed to the brain from the fall.

Southampton coroner Keith Wiseman recorded an accidental death verdict.

Afterwards his son Nigel, 60, also from Hamble, said: “He was a grand old man and the Hamble River was his life.

“When we were growing up we had lots of important people drawing up to our house in big cars.

“I used to think he was in the Navy because they provided him with uniforms and he wore a sailor’s hat.”

His eldest son Leslie, 62, from Locks Heath, said: “The Bevis’s were well known and always out on the water sailing or fishing.”

Bennett Bevis, previously served as a Royal Navy volunteer in the Second World War, serving as a landing craft cox in the Middle East.