6 Metre 2012 European Championship

From Matt Cockbur

Hi Matt,

I know that KC 10 Gallant and US 83 Llanoria will be there, since neither boat came back and both are being stored at Kotka Boat Center under Allan Savolainen’s watchful eye. US 51 Totem was making noises and I thought that N 71 Flapper was still over there. The other potential US boat “opportunity” is US 54 Bobkat II, currently in the UK for sale by Doug Peterson. “Bobkat” and “Lucie” were teammates on the 1932 British American team races at Cowes, along with US 56 Jill and US 60 Nancy (also in the UK).

One thing you may not know about the European Championships is that the trophy for the Classics is an enormous piece of silver called the President’s Cup (see attached), which was given by President Woodrow Wilson for a regatta sailed in 6 metres at the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. The trophy was shown in major cities across the country before the big event and originally sat on a California Redwood burl. There were only 2 boats in the regatta, US 1 Lady Betty (the first USA 6 meter, built in San Francisco in under 30 days just for the event) and Nurdug IV, the current European Champion, which was sent by King Christian X of Denmark. Nurdug IV won the thing for Denmark 2- 1 and the trophy went to the Royal Danish Yacht Club (KDY) and stayed there for 70 years until the KDY hosted a world championships for the ILC 40 class which fell apart a few years later. I found the trophy in Italy with the last ILC 40 class winner, who graciously returned it to the KDY, which hosted the 6mR Europeans in 2002. The KDY re-deeded the trophy back to the sixes at the event.

There’s poetic justice that the European Championship trophy is from the USA, especially considering the big role President Wilson played in brokering the peace after WW1. It would be awesome for a USA boat to win it, even more so if the boat came from San Francisco Yacht Club, whose current setting came about partly as a result of the development of the Marina District for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Best regards,

Matt