final results were in this order: Sopwith, Hovey, Sigrist, Lambert and Van- 

 derbilt. The winner was so pleased with his success that he invited the 

 owners of the two Brutal Beasts on which he had raced to be his guests on 

 Endeavour II. 



"Did you and Barbara accept the invitation?" I asked Janny (now Mrs. 

 John C. White, Jr.), as she reminisced about Brutal Beast days. 



"You bet" was her answer. 



The Brutal Beast class is dwindling in numbers. Though a few are still 

 sailed in Marblehead, and some have scattered to Blue Hill Bay in Maine, 

 Orleans on Cape Cod, and other waters, none have been built since World 

 War II. The reason is the high cost of their construction due to the materials 

 from which they were made and the high price of skilled labor. The Brutal 

 Beasts are important to those interested in sailboat classes, not for their 

 present and future, but for their past, 



VITAL statistics: L.O.A. 14'; beam 6V; sail area 127 sq. ft. 



BULL'S EYE and HERRESHOFF "TWELVES" 



The Bull's Eye 15'8V2" sloop is the modern version of the Herreshoff 

 "Twelve," well known from the days when boats were described by their 

 waterline length. In 1914, the great Nathanael G. Herreshoff, who came to 

 be known as the "Wizard of Bristol" (Rhode Island), designed a gaff- 

 rigged keel sloop which became extremely popular in southern Massachu- 

 setts and Rhode Island. This boat, which was known as the "Twelve," 

 proved well suited to Buzzards Bay waters, where, as in Kipling's Baltic, 

 "the seas are steep and short," piled up by the perennial sou'wester which 

 blows almost daily during the yachting season. Her over-all length was 

 about 15^/4 feet; her waterline about 12'5''; her beam s'lo'', and the draft 

 2'5"; with a sail area of about 140 square feet. Hundreds of the Twelves 

 were built and many are still seen on Buzzards Bay— together with the 

 Beetles they constitute one of the few active classes still carrying a gaff rig. 

 The writer and his wife and daughters used to sail a good deal in these 

 boats, out of Marion, Massachusetts and acquired a great deal of respect for 

 their seagoing abilities, as we have for the fiber-glass version. 



The Bull's Eye is the Twelve "gone modern," with all of its seaworthy 

 quahties remaining, but with a fiber-glass hull, a cuddy forward, adequate 

 flotation, a Marconi rig, aluminum spars, roller reefing, Dacron sails, etc. 

 The writer thought it was the prettiest sailboat of its size at a recent New 

 York Motor Boat Show, and that is saying a good deal. 



RACING CLASSES 35 



