''King's Legend'' is a

Swan 65 The Swan 65 is a large fibreglass fin+keeled Masthead rig, masthead ketch- or sloop-rigged sailing yacht design, manufactured by Nautor's Swan. It was introduced as the new flagship of Nautor in 1973. At the time of its launch it was the largest ...

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, Windsurfing, windsurfer, or Kitesurfing, kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (Land sa ...

yacht A yacht () is a sail- or marine propulsion, motor-propelled watercraft made for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a ...

. She has competed in the

Whitbread Around the World Race The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean Ra ...

in '77-'78, in which she came second. She is owned by Dutchman Gijs van Liebergen, and is used for chartered cruises on the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

and northern Europe.

Construction

King's Legend was constructed at the Finnish wharf

Nautor's Swan Oy Nautor Ab is a Finnish producer of luxury sailing yachts, based in Jakobstad. It is known for its ''Nautor's Swan'' range of yachts models. The company was founded in 1966 by Pekka Koskenkylä. The designers Nautor has worked with four nav ...

in Jakobstad. She was commissioned by British businessman, Nick Ratcliff, who paid for the construction of the ship with his family's wealth. The yacht was designed by designer duo

Sparkman & Stephens Sparkman & Stephens is a naval architecture and yacht brokerage firm with offices in Newport, Rhode Island and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. The firm performs design and engineering of new and existing vessels for pleasure, commercial, and milit ...

, who designed the majority of Nautor's Swan ships. Anticipating King's Legend's participation in the

two years later, the design deviated from the two-masted model that was standard at the time, using a single, somewhat taller mast instead. King's Legend was probably built in a year and a half, and upon completion, she was one of the fastest sailing yachts in the world. King's Legend's first

home port A vessel's home port is the port at which it is based, which may not be the same as its port of registry shown on its registration documents and lettered on the stern of the ship's hull. In the cruise industry the term "home port" is also oft ...

was in

Cowes Cowes () is an England, English port, seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina, facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east bank. The two towns are linked b ...

, on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

. This is where the ship's crew prepared for the Whitbread Race. Their training sessions went well, with the exception of a broken mast due to the

forestay On a sailing vessel, a forestay, sometimes just called a stay, is a piece of standing rigging which keeps a mast from falling backwards. It is attached either at the very top of the mast, or in fractional rigs between about 1/8 and 1/4 from the t ...

not being thick enough. The ship was sailed by a multinational crew of sailor friends, who were paid in

room and board Room and board describes an accommodation which, in exchange for money, labour or other recompense, a person is provided with a place to live in addition to meals. It commonly occurs as a fee at higher educational institutions, such as colleges ...

, but not in salary. One of the crew members was Skip Novak, a well-known sailor who later competed four times in the

Volvo Ocean Race The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean Rac ...

, the successor of the Whitbread Race. According to Novak, he was "in the right place at the right time" to join King's Legend's crew as its navigator, owing the position to meeting Ratcliff by chance at the bar of the Fountain Hotel in Cowes and "a handshake over a pint of ale."

Career

Whitbread Race

On the 27th of August, 1977, the second Whitbread Race took off at

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

, featuring fifteen competing yachts. Most of the second Whitbread Race was dominated by a head to head race between King's Legend and Flyer, a yacht representing the Netherlands and navigated by

Conny van Rietschoten Cornelis "Conny" van Rietschoten (23 March 1926 – 17 December 2013) was a Dutch yacht skipper who was the only skipper to win the Whitbread Round the World Race twice. Background Born in Rotterdam, Van Rietschoten had been sailing since he ...

. Contrary to the current Volvo Ocean Race, the Whitbread Race was sailed by pioneers. Navigation was done by

sextant A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of cel ...

and

radio direction finder Direction finding (DF), radio direction finding (RDF), or radiogoniometry is the use of radio waves to determine the direction to a radio source. The source may be a cooperating radio transmitter or may be an inadvertent source, a natural ...

, and taking great risks could be rewarding, for example by passing the south pole as closely as possible. Flyer and King's Legend left the other competitors far behind. During the first stage, a thousand

nautical miles A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude at the eq ...

before

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

, both ships were still within visual range of each other, but in the end Flyer managed to win the first stage by 2 hours and 4 minutes.G. Jobson, Fighting Finish: The Volvo Ocean Race : Round the World 2001-2002 (Vermont, Nomad Press: 2002) 112-114 During the second stage, from

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, King's Legend managed to get ahead of the Flyer by 360 nautical miles, until a leak was discovered at the rudderpost. It took two days to get it under control. Novak described the event as "a stark reminder that these are desolate oceans populated only by albatross, whales and ice, with no shipping within thousands of miles.". " The incident cost King's Legend a large portion of the lead. During the third stage, between

and

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, the crew lost their SSB radio, completely cutting the ship off from the outside world. Without access to weather reports, King's Legend ended up lagging behind the competition. Throughout the Whitbread Race, King's Legend was plagued by financial trouble. Reportedly, Conny van Rietschoten, Ratcliff's primary opponent, gave the crew financial support in order to keep the ship in the race. He allegedly paid an outstanding hotel bill in South Africa, and donated roughly $30,000 to King's Legend further on in the race. Ratcliff is also said to have refused to finish in England due to a

consumption tax A consumption tax is a tax levied on consumption spending on goods and services. The tax base of such a tax is the money spent on Consumption (economics), consumption. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value-added ta ...

debt he still owed the British tax administration. Lowered morale among the crew eventually had Ratcliff back down. King's Legend finished in Portsmouth with a travel time of 121 days and 11 hours, earning her second place.

After the Whitbread Race

Nick Ratcliff's financial trouble after the race forced him to sell the ship. The buyer was a diamond trader from

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, who owned the ship for only a brief time and mainly used her for celebrations on the Hudson. In the first twenty years after the Whitbread Race, the ship changed ownership various times. King's Legend has been in Lebanese, Belgian and Norwegian hands, and has sailed all over the world, from Australia to South Africa and the Caribbean. Since 1999, King's Legend belongs to a Dutch owner. She was bought from a Norwegian businessman, and was in a bad condition at the time. The ship was renovated in five months at a wharf in

IJmuiden n IJ (digraph) and that should remain the only places where they are used. > IJmuiden () is a port town in the Netherlands, Dutch province of North Holland. It is the main town in the municipality of Velsen which lies mainly to the south-ea ...

. She was outfitted with new sails and a new

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panic ...

deck, among other changes. The ship's interior was sanded and lacquered, but is otherwise still in the original state. After this refit, King's Legend has been sailing around the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean and northern Europe. She is currently mainly a pleasure cruise ship, but she also competes in various competitions. King's Legend competed in the

Antigua Sailing Week Antigua Sailing Week is a week long yacht regatta held in the waters off English Harbour, St Pauls Antigua. It is one of Antigua's most notable events. Founded in 1967, it is cited as one of the top regattas in the world with 100 yachts, 1500 par ...

Sint Maarten Heineken Regatta ''Sint'' (released on DVD as ''Saint'' in Europe and ''Saint Nick'' in the United States) is a 2010 Dutch dark comedy horror film about Sinterklaas, the character on which the Anglo-Saxon Santa Claus is based. The film was directed by Dick Maas a ...

Voiles de Saint-Tropez The Voiles de Saint-Tropez is a regatta that takes place once a year in the gulf of Saint-Tropez, Var, France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and ...

and both Swan Cups, and will be competing in the

Fastnet Race The Fastnet Race is a biennial offshore yacht race organized by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) of the United Kingdom with the assistance of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes and the City of Cherbourg in France. The race is named after th ...

and various other races in the future.

Origin of the name King's Legend

The name King's Legend originates from an old English legend. A thousand years ago, three English kings were plagued by devastating raids by pillaging

Vikings Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

. The three kings decided to work together and devised a plan. They gathered up all their treasures, buried them separately on their lands and put a

curse A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, ...

on them. When the Vikings returned, the villagers led them to the first buried treasure. The Vikings loaded the treasure onto their ships and sailed off, happy with the abundant loot. On the way home, however, they ended up in a great storm and the entire fleet was lost to the waves. The second time Viking raiders came, the villagers led them to the second buried treasure. The Vikings once again eagerly dug up the treasure, had a great feast and sailed home. Once home, they turned out to have been infected with a deadly disease that caused an epidemic in their village and nearly wiped it out altogether. The Vikings decided to avoid that part of England henceforth. Years later, a nearly broke businessman decided to invest his last money in a racing horse, in an all-or-nothing last-ditch effort. He called this horse Kings' Legend, after the above legend. The horse won the race, and the businessman's luck changed for the better again. In honor of the three kings and their legend, he had a

mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word ''manse'' originally defined a property l ...

built at the site where the last remaining treasure was believed to be buried. He named the mansion Kings' Legend as well. Upon his death in the late nineteenth century, the mansion was bought by the Ratcliff family. When the young Nick Ratcliff bought a sailing yacht to compete in the Whitbread Race, he expected to need all the luck he could get. He named the ship Kings' Legend. Over the years, the

apostrophe The apostrophe (, ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

in the name was accidentally shifted from ''Kings' Legend'' to ''King's Legend'', yielding the ship's current name.

Crew during the Whitbread Race

''Note: This may not be a complete list.''

External links

Official website

References

{{Reflist Individual sailing vessels Volvo Ocean Race yachts 1970s sailing yachts Sailing yachts built in Finland Sailing yachts of the Netherlands Sailboat types built by Nautor Swan Sailboat type designs by Olin Stephens Sailboat type designs by Sparkman and Stephens Sailboat type designs by American designers