Three weeks before its national championship regatta, the Harvard lightweight crew was still two seconds behind season-long rival Yale. But on the Cooper River in Camden, N.J. on June 2, the lightweights won the national title over the Elis by a second—in a boat they had begun rowing just one week earlier.

Harvard’s interest in the King boats, designed by former Harvard boatman Graeme King and produced by the fledging company Elite Boatworks, peaked when Jim Crick ’88, President of Elite Boatworks and former Harvard rower, brought Elite’s fifth boat to Cambridge.

The Crimson had been rowing in a Resolute boat up until the weekend before the Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s National Championship. Harvard tried rowing Elite’s King for four days, including a practice during which the Resolute was taken out for comparison.

“Jim called to ask if we wanted to try it,” said Harvard lightweight Coach Charley Butt. “We were still two seconds behind Yale and it was a new boat so we thought we should look at it.”

After Butt’s crew rowed the King for a few days, Harvard bought the new boat just a few days before the final race of the season.

“We thought it was more stable and we knew that it didn’t weigh more,” Butt said. “The flow off the stern was minimal and the boat slipped through the water instead of plowing through. But the comfort of the rowers was the determining factor.”

Stability and speed are two canceling factors in terms of boat design. The lower a boat sits in the water, the more stability and water friction ensues. So as one increases a boat’s stability, one decreases the boat’s speed.

“The King has a very fast design and it’s very easy to row,” Crick said. “It has a very stable platform as well as being quick. The trade-off in boat production is whether the boat is fast or stable. Graeme, in his brilliance, created a balance between the two.”