Eventually innovations began to make their way into the class, at first 

 unwelcome among some of the old-timers. Crosscut sails, tracks on mast and 

 boom, overlapping jibs, spinnakers, "barn-door" rudders, longer tillers all 

 came in. The boats became better balanced, faster, easier to handle, if not 

 safer. Jam cleats, snatch blocks, even wire halyards with winches helped 

 to complete the modernization. But this was not enough. Hurricane Carol 

 had wiped out several fleets in 1954; many boats were beyond repair. 

 Then the Cape Cod Shipbuilding Company stopped making the boats and 

 turned to other classes. Something had to be done if such a well-liked class 

 were to be kept alive. A committee of the Southern Massachusetts Yacht 

 Racing Association commissioned Robert S. Fox to make a set of drawings 

 for a new, uniform, fiber-glass class based on the measurements of one of the 

 Cape Cod Knockabout Class.* 



The revitalized, fiber-glass class is now known as "The 18-Foot Knock- 

 about Class," which has an association of that name of which Webster A. 

 Collins (5 Wilder Rd., Shrewsbury, Mass.) is the Secretary. The Frost Boat 

 Company of Falmouth, Massachusetts, makes the fiber-glass boats. A new K 

 insignia was adopted. 



The racing class as it exists today is thus not limited to Cape Cod Baby 

 Knockabouts but also includes fiber-glass knockabouts built by Frost. In 

 1962 over one hundred knockabouts were registered with the association, 

 most of them located along the South Shore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 

 Price of the new boats is $2300; used wooden hulls are from $300 to $1000. 



VITAL STATISTICS of i8-Foot Kuockabout (fiber-glass) Class: 

 L.O.A. 18'; waterline isV'; beam 6'; draft with board up 14", with C.B. 

 down 4'2"; sail area 187V2 sq. ft. ( spinnaker allowed ) ; construction materials 

 wood and fiber glass; weight 1200 lbs. with ballast (weights of wooden boats 

 vary). 



* Data in this paragraph from "Cape Cod's Baby Knockabout Grows Up," Winthrop P. Munro 

 in Motor Boating, July 1961. 



RACING CLASSES 43 



