Nick Keig is a sailor from the Isle of Mann situated in the stormy waters of the Irish Sea. 

After racing an Iroquois Mk I called "Tom Tom" he gained a love of fast multihulls. However he pushed his cat too fast in rough seas and capsized her. From the account published it appears to have been a wave assisted capsize but it drove Nick to look at Derek Kelsall's designs and to build his K37 racer/cruiser trimaran which he called Three Legs of Mann. He enjoyed great success with this boat in the Crystal Trophy and Round the Island races; then the Round Britain Race and the AZAB race. He achieved a World record for a 24 hour run as well. The boat was sold to a new French owner. She went on to race under different names and is still sailing under French ownership today. 

Nick built a new K53 racer cruiser trimaran Three Legs of Mann II. Following the development programme of the 35 foot FT trimaran  Derek decided to move away from  metal beams, and TLM II featured sculptured  GRP foam box girder beams. She was a sensational boat. Second in the 1978 Round Britain Race and lots of race wins to her credit TLM II was again quickly sold to a French owner and skippered by veteran French yachtsman Alain Glicksman. He  renamed her  Seiko/RTL  after his watch making sponsor. He thought she was the fastest yacht in the World.  By modern standards both she and her successor were comfortable cruising yachts as opposed to stripped out racers.  Initially Glicksman entered the French transatlantic race (The Route Du Rhum) in 1978 before retiring to the Azores. He the sailed her on to America where  he decided to  attempt a West to East record across the North Atlantic with a crew onboard. 

The story was told in Nicholas Angel's book "Capsize". It suggests that Glicksman and his crew thought her rather lightly built. They strengthened her and replaced rigging and the winches and deck gear.  Photo's suggst that additional fairings were added to the beams.  Perhaps they did not fully appreciate the lightweight philosophy of the design -added weight is an anathema in these trimarans and particiularly added weight effects the bouyancy of the floats adversely.   TLM II was intended to submerge her lee floats and round up in a squall in order to avoid a capsize spilling wind from the sails. 

Sadly they encountered a typhoon in the Gulf Stream and  Alain drove the trimaran extremely hard. Trimaran sailing and how best to handle a lightly built trimaran with low buoyancy floats in extreme weather was in its infancy. The inherent stability seems to have caused a feeling of invincibility until it was too late. Alain probably  should have adopted survival tactic running off and using a drogue to slow her down. Indeed I suspect he should have done anything other than what he did which was keep driving to windward in 50 knot plus winds. This may be suitable to very tough monohulls but was suicidal in a trimaran of this type. 

This hard driving in what were  now extreme conditions inevitably caused a capsize as TLM II drove up a huge breaking wave, she stalled head to wind, stopped and then the breaking wave meant that she broached causing the effect to be that the wave just tossed her over "like a pancake" in Alain's words.  

Retrospective analysis suggests that she cartwheeled backwards over the lee float so maybe if she had 150 % plus buoyancy in the floats and they were therefore bigger and longer she may have slid away from the wave instead of burying the aft end of the float and then rolling over it. Unfortunately this was just one of many trimaran capsizes in the late 1970's and it was later determined in tank tests that trimarans with lower than 100%  buoyancy in the floats were less stable than those with full buoyancy floats. 

Certainly in the replacement for her that Derek designed for Nick Keig in 1979, Three Legs of Mann III, the floats were fuller buoyancy at 150%.  That magnificent tri not only took Nick to second place in the 1980 OSTAR but still sails under French ownership today with many trans ocean crossings to her credit. Subsequent Kelsall trimarans reverted to the well tested Toria/Trifle proportions.   

As for Nick he went on to build two more Kelsall yachts after his three trimarans, one Legs of Mann IV (aka VSD) was revolutionary designed pure racing catamaran  that I will describe separately. His last Legs of Mann V was a superb fast cruising  catamaran that is pictured in the Kelsall catamarans section and the drawings of TLM II and III also feature in the trimaran drawings  while LOM V drawings are in the catamaran drawings section too. 

Nick's career after his Kelsall designs was interesting as he went on to develop a revolutionary very fast motor boat as a prototype Naval vessel.

The photographs below are Nick and his wife in 1980 and the Isle of Mann stamp commemorating his sailing achievements. In separate galleries are  the first 37 foot Three Legs of Mann then Three Legs of Mann II and Three Legs of Mann III. 

Click on the images to enlarge them.