‘Rum Tum Tugger’ Prepares to Doublehand 2026 Pacific Cup
As part of an ongoing series ahead of the 2026 Pacific Cup, Latitude 38 is highlighting the sailors and boats racing to Hawaii this summer. In today’s edition, we check in with Rum Tum Tugger, a Beneteau First 10R sailing under the burgee of Richmond Yacht Club. She will be doublehanded by Kate King and her husband Brian.
Sailing has been a part of Kate King’s life since she was a kid. She grew up sailing with her dad, who also provided the inspiration for the unique boat name.
“My dad bought his first boat when I was about 8, and I’m 64,” King tells Latitude. “So there’s a lot of history there, but we’ll just skip forward to the purchase of the Beneteau in 2007, which was his last boat, and that’s this boat, Rum Tum Tugger. Seven of his boats were named Rum Tum Tugger, who is a character in T.S. Elliott’s Cats. He saw the musical in London in 1981, and immediately renamed his boat. Every boat since then, it’s been Rum Tum Tugger.”
Sailing, and specifically sailing on Rum Tum Tugger, has been a big part of Kate and Brian King’s relationship, emphasized by the venue of their wedding.
“We got married at the Richmond Yacht Club and sailed away on the boat, which was a lot of fun,” King tells us. “We did our own little honeymoon on the boat, but we also sailed back to Hawaii with our friend Charlie Casey on California Riff Rider. My dad gave us a boat as our wedding present, which is … you know what boats are like, so that was like a blessing and a curse, but we’re very happy with it.”
2026 will not be the duo’s first time entering the Pacific Cup. They entered the last Pac Cup in 2024, but were not able to finish the race.
“It wasn’t really until Brian retired in 2022 that we committed to do the Pac Cup in 2024,” King tells us of their Pac Cup background. “We spent a lot; I mean, we had to put in some autopilot, take the boat down to L.A.… And then we had to put in new standing rigging.… [We] replaced a bunch of stuff, and then we had an emergency rudder, carbon emergency rudder, fabricated. I can’t even remember everything we did. We started the race, but I developed a high fever on the second day out, and it was determined by the powers that be — that would be the people that didn’t have a fever — that we should come back. So we didn’t actually finish the race in 2024, which is why we’re doing it in 2026.”
While many race entries will be sporting a large crew, as always, there will be several doublehanded entries. Rum Tum Tugger will be one of those, with the Kings going at it alone.
“It’s just so much easier for the two of us together,” Kate tells us of the plan. “Like, there’s no socializing, there’s no negotiation, we’re just good at decision-making together. We know each other’s moods. Historically, we’ve done four-hour shifts, which has worked well for us. I mean, we haven’t done it for 14 days straight. Well, we did four on, four off, actually, when we came back from Hawaii, and unfortunately, after the engine died, that ended up being a 24-day passage.”
“Our goal is not to aggressively trim our sails and get there three hours earlier,” King tells us of their goals. “It’s really to pace ourselves, and to do as best as we can. I don’t want to be enduring to get there. I want to be enjoying it. I think we’ve come to the realization that even though they call it the ‘Fun Race to Hawaii,’ that this kind of endurance event is really more like an adventure, a wilderness adventure. Type-two fun. Having sailed off the coast of California a lot and having done that [return delivery] back from Hawaii, we get to see a lot of wildlife. Seabirds on both ends. But in the middle, there’s not really a lot of that kind of thing. But just the motion of the ocean, the swells, and the different kinds of moods of the water are very enjoyable to me. It’s not unlike downhill skiing, really.”
Though it might seem a ways away now, the start of the 2026 Pacific Cup is rapidly approaching. In the meantime, stay tuned for more Latitude 38 profiles of the racers competing this year.