According to Rick Cunningham, there was some rum involved in the purchase of his new-to-him Gunboat 62 DreadKnot. He and a good friend had been talking about doing the Transpac race forever, they kept looking at boats, Cunningham was looking beyond a monohull and decided he wanted a multihull.
“I wanted to do that race on a cat, have a little more comfort and a little more speed,” he says. “Gunboats came into the discussion and Cunningham started down that road. He befriended Spike Abram who is well-versed in the Gunboat product; Abram helped Cunningham find the boat that he wanted in Fort Lauderdale which made it an easy choice. Interestingly, the boat raced in the BVI under previous ownership as Elvis and Mach Schnell. Cunningham’s purchase of DreadKnot closed on February 15, and work started on the boat on February 16.
“We took off a month later to make our 12-day journey over here; we got stuck in Turks and Caicos for a few days as the poor delivery crew took it on the nose the whole way,” Cunningham says. “But we’re here, we have a great crew of people but none of us have ever sailed together before. My partner’s son, Charlie Welsh, has a great group of guys that he sailed collegiately with and then offshore after that so we’ve got his group of guys here and we have a couple pros on board including Ben Kelly from North Sails, Australia, who’s our tactician.”
DreadKnot has been out a few times this week and Cunningham’s like a kid in a candy store – he’s thrilled with his new toy.
“The first day we took it out the breeze was kind and I was like, yeah, this isn’t that exciting; the second day we were out there was more breeze and I thought, “this is really cool,” then yesterday we took it out in a ton of breeze and I was like, oh my God!” Cunningham laughs. “So, yeah, we’re loving it. It’s so responsive. I grew up sailing one design boats and I still do; I’ve been sailing C-Scows since I was like 14 years old which is a big overpowered, super fun, wet, fast boat. When I’m driving DreadKnot by the tiller and we have the rudder bearings lubricated, it feels the same. In a bunch of breeze, it’s super responsive; it’s everything I was looking for an offshore boat.”
Cunningham was oblivious to the joys of Caribbean racing prior to his purchase of DreadKnot but a web search brought him a bevy of choices.
“The danger of this new AI that’s taken over the world is you can plug in and ask it questions like, what are all the regattas you could do?” Cunningham laughs. “We did a lot of research and found every single regatta we could do. We just wanted to get experience in day racing so that we can work into overnight racing and long distance, get the crew to gel. But Spike said the BVI Spring Regatta is one you definitely don’t want to miss; several other people said the same thing. We’re made it our goal to get here and now we’re ready to have fun!”
DreadKnot has an aggressive summer schedule lined up after they leave the BVI, hitting the major races all the way up the east coast this summer. Hopefully, they’ll be back to play in the BVI next year!
The 2026 BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival welcomes four Gunboats this week: Break Free, DreadKnot, Little Wing and Layla. We’re happy that they are here!
