his sense of humor it would not have been out of character. He designed the 

 boat in the early part of this century and built it in his Marblehead yacht 

 yard. As an old friend of his put it, "he wanted a boat for his children and 

 grandchildren which would be safe and yet have zip." The boats were 14- 

 foot-long, hard-chine V-bottom cats, and became successful far beyond the 

 needs of the Burgess family. During 1937 the class used to sail in Marble- 

 head in four divisions, with twenty-five or thirty boats in each group. 



Beginning with gaff rigs, they were later converted to Marconis and 

 served as trainers for many men, such as Ted Hood and others, who later 

 became expert racers. They also at one time demonstrated to one of the 

 country's great skippers that success in racing a J boat does not necessarily 

 assure success in sailing a 14-footer— at least not a Brutal Beast. 



On August 29, 1937, a pretty fifteen-year-old girl, "Janny" Harwood, the 

 proud owner of a new Brutal Beast, the Rip Tide, brought her boat to the 

 dock of the Eastern Yacht Club at Marblehead and waited. She was one 

 of five skippers of these wicked-sounding boats who had been asked to meet 

 at the dock with their craft. The America's Cup had been successfully de- 

 fended at Newport by Harold Vanderbilt and he and the other J-boat 

 skippers were in Marblehead for a series of races in their great 135-foot 

 (or so) racers. Besides Vanderbilt, Thomas O. M. Sopwith, the unsuccessful 

 English challenger, was there with his Endeavour I and Endeavour 11, to- 

 gether with his skipper, Sigrist. Chandler Hovey was in Marblehead with 

 Rainbow and Gerard Lambert with Yankee. As an interesting diversion, a 

 Brutal Beast Challenge Cup had been offered for a series of two races in 

 Brutal Beasts by the J-boat skippers. 



Janny waited at the dock with Rip Tide. A tall figure approached and 

 explained that he had drawn Rip Tide for the first race. 



"How close will she point?" Mike Vanderbilt inquired of Janny. "About 

 five points, I'd imagine?" 



Janny didn't quite know where five points would be but she took a chance 

 and said that she guessed that was about right. But she failed to remind 

 the new skipper that in Brutal Beasts it was important to keep a proper 

 balance of weight between bow and stern. Vanderbilt hadn't worried much 

 about this when he was on the Ranger, at least so far as the distribution 

 of his own weight was concerned. He sat too near the stern, I am told, and 

 came in last in the first race of Brutal Beasts. Tom Sopwith was first in a 

 boat belonging to Barbara Connolly. 



For the second race Sopwith had drawn Rip Tide and asked Janny for 

 instructions. Again he won. Obviously there had been nothing wrong with 

 the boat in the first race. Vanderbilt, in another boat, was again last. The 



34 THE SAILBOAT CLASSES OF NORTH AMERICA 



