RACE1 KER 11.3

"Ker rips up form book with new design"
- David Pelly. (The Daily Telegraph) Friday August 10, 2001.

EVERY so often a new name pops up to challenge the established order and a strong candidate for the position of chief mould-breaker this year is the British designer Jason Ker, whose boats have been ripping up the form books at Skandia Life Cowes Week with considerable abandon.

Yesterday I raced in Class I aboard Robbie Cameron-Davies' Ker 11.3 I-Site, which finished second behind the all-conquering heavyweight Desperado. She is a genuine full-on raceboat with no half-timbered pretensions to comfort whatsoever. Three-quarters of the deck area is devoted to a huge working cockpit while out of sight below the hull is a slim blade of a keel with all the ballast in a bulb at the end.

In effect she is a sportsboat along the lines of a Melges or Hunter 707 but roughly twice the size. Like those sporty little boats, the 11.3 has lots of sail for her weight and jumps about like a frisky stallion when the breeze is up. Yesterday, when the breeze was fresh towards the end of the race and we finally managed to set a spinnaker after an eternity of beating, the speedo immediately leaped to 15 knots and the crew told me that in the stronger wind on Wednesday they had seen 18 knots on the clock.

Our helmsman for the day, David Lenz, who formerly sailed an Olympic 49er dinghy, described I-Site as "astonishingly responsive for a boat of her size" and I, for one, would not argue with that.




		THE KER 11.3 AT COWES WEEK 2001. "Ker rips up form book with new design" - David Pelly. (The Daily Telegraph) Friday August 10, 2001. EVERY so often a new name pops up to challenge the established order and a strong candidate for the position of chief mould-breaker this year is the British designer Jason Ker, whose boats have been ripping up the form books at Skandia Life Cowes Week with considerable abandon. Yesterday I raced in Class I aboard Robbie Cameron-Davies' Ker 11.3 I-Site, which finished second behind the all-conquering heavyweight Desperado. She is a genuine full-on raceboat with no half-timbered pretensions to comfort whatsoever. Three-quarters of the deck area is devoted to a huge working cockpit while out of sight below the hull is a slim blade of a keel with all the ballast in a bulb at the end. In effect she is a sportsboat along the lines of a Melges or Hunter 707 but roughly twice the size. Like those sporty little boats, the 11.3 has lots of sail for her weight and jumps about like a frisky stallion when the breeze is up. Yesterday, when the breeze was fresh towards the end of the race and we finally managed to set a spinnaker after an eternity of beating, the speedo immediately leaped to 15 knots and the crew told me that in the stronger wind on Wednesday they had seen 18 knots on the clock. Our helmsman for the day, David Lenz, who formerly sailed an Olympic 49er dinghy, described I-Site as "astonishingly responsive for a boat of her size" and I, for one, would not argue with that.