Beken of Cowes

Slightly spookily I was watching a video "Beken of Cowes by appointment" when I read your post Kilter.

Apart from his amazing legacy of yacht photos, I have to say he comes over on the video as a truly charming man.

A sad loss to the world of yachting.

Little Knot
 
and that legendary picture.....

SilkII_pitchpole.jpg


Sorry your gone Keith.... your fabulous pictures will live on....
 
Keith Beken's father was a chemist in Cowes, and started the yacht photography business. He took all the marvellous photos of the early yachts that always seem to be in sepia. (Perhaps in those days the boats and sails were in fact always manufactured in a brown colour? On the East Coast the sea of course has remained that colour to this day.)

The family sold the chemists shop in 1970 to focus on boat photography, allowing the buyers to also continue using the Beken name. Keith in turn passed the business down on to his son. It seems that there is a photographic gene, because the quality of the pictures has remained consistently superb across three generations.

Little Knot
 
What a shame. 92's a good innings though.

I used to teach dinghy sailing at the National Sailing Center in the early 80s. We used to see him out on the water quite a bit and always got a friendly wave
 
i have had the honour of having owned a boat that Beken have taken photos of /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
& visited the shop only the once im afraid /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

thanks Keith /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
This is not only the loss of a gentleman and great yachting photographer but also of a fantastic raconteur with the most amazing library of lewd jokes which he could get away with in any company. A very great loss indeed and I feel honoured to have been in one of his few audencies in recent years.
 
I am somewhat privaledged to own the boat that Beken of Cowes owned from 1986 to 1999. I have the original receipts and logs. She didn't have a name then and now is known as "Coney Island" and has a happy and much improved lifestyle at Porthmadog. CI had had a hard life (as you might expect as a working boat) and was specced as a photographers platform and as such had been built without a radar arch - unique and not altogether desireable for a Windy 8800. I have a photo of Ken Beken aboard my boat - he looks much like Keith and I also have the original receipt for the purchase back in 86. She originally sported a pair of AQ171's at 168HP each and now has a pair of V6 Vortecs at 205HP each - converted to LPG.

I have spent a considerable amount of money on this boat and now she looks like a good condition original - albeit still without the radar arch!

Every year I go out and photograph the yacht races around Porthmadog and I still have that feeling that my boat was built for this purpose - I just wish I had one fraction of Keith's skill. God bless.
 
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