She is owned by Dutchman Gijs van Liebergen, and is used for chartered cruises on the Caribbean, the Mediterranean Sea and northern Europe.
Anticipating King's Legend's participation in the Whitbread Around the World Race 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.
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.
Navigation was done by sextant and radio direction finder, and taking great risks could be rewarding, for example by passing the south pole as closely as possible.
[3] During the second stage, from Cape Horn to New Zealand, King's Legend managed to get ahead of the Flyer by 360 nautical miles, until a leak was discovered at the rudderpost.
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.".
During the third stage, between New Zealand and Brazil, the crew lost their SSB radio, completely cutting the ship off from the outside world.
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.
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.
Years later, a nearly broke businessman decided to invest his last money in a racing horse, in an all-or-nothing last-ditch effort.
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.