104 
(Jan. 21, 1911. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Lakewood Men Busy. 
The Lakewood Y. C. will have a new Class 
R racing yachts for the coming season’s sport. 
Cox & Stevens, of this city, have prepared 
plans for the boat and a syndicate has been 
formed to raise the necessary funds. George 
Q. Hall is looking after the financial end of the 
affair, and two subscriptions of $500 each have 
been made by Commodore Winton and M. 
Lyman Lawrence. The members of the club 
are anxious that the yacht should be built at 
Cleveland. The Lakewood Yacht Yard is anxi¬ 
ous to get the contract, but no fin keel racer 
has ever been built there, and consequently 
the committee is doubtful if the work could be 
done satisfactorily. 
The outlook for a fine season of sport is very 
good with yachtsmen about Cleveland. 
Another Lakewood member, who has been a 
keen racing man for years, has recently sold 
his boat and announces that he has about de¬ 
cided to either buy or build a class R boat for 
next summer’s racing. An inquiry has been 
sent to Lake Ontario, where there are seven 
or eight boats in the class, to see if any of 
the fast ones are for sale. There is nothing 
in eastern waters, as far as is known, which 
would stand a good chance of beating the boats 
building this winter. 
The Lakewood Y. C. has received several 
new applications for membership the past week, 
one of the more prominent being Louis John¬ 
son, owner of the cruiser Sunbeam II. and 
former secretary of the Cleveland Power Boat 
Club. Mr. Johnson is an enthusiastic power 
boat man and is expected to take an active 
part in the races at Rocky river next season. 
James Miller, owner of the cruiser Aurora, 
which won the long distance race of the Cleve¬ 
land Power Boat Club last summer, has also 
joined the Rocky river fleet. He will be a 
strong contender for honors in the cruising 
class. 
A. Y. Gowen’s new high speed cruiser is 
rapidly nearing completion at Morris Heights. 
The boat will be ready for delivery about Feb¬ 
ruary 1, when Mr. Gowen expects to start on a 
trip to Florida and Cuba. It is understood, 
however, that the boat will not be taken south 
because the owner’s business prevents, but will 
be brought to Cleveland as sOon as the canal 
is open. The new Gowen craft is one of the 
finest pleasure yachts ever constructed at the 
Seabury plant. It is quite generally believed 
that her owner will be flying the rear-commo¬ 
dore’s flag of the Lakewood Y. C. when he 
leaves New York in the early spring. 
is the surviving member. This was in the win¬ 
ter of 1891-2. 
Both were built by Higgins & Gifford, of 
Gloucester, that winter and launched early in 
the spring. The Nancy took to the water 
about three weeks ahead of the Jane, and when 
each was ready to sail they were taken to 
Marblehead by Mr. Taggard and Mr. Parker. 
This was the start of the well-known knock¬ 
about type of sailing yacht and so liked has the 
rig become that nearly all racing yachts of the 
present day of under 40-feet water line, are 
either knockabout or semi-knockabout rig. 
The following year Mr. Taggard sold the 
Nancy to a Marblehead yachtsman, as he had 
built the Susan. In 1894 the Susan was re¬ 
placed by the Esther, and some years later 
the Nancy was bought back by Mr. Taggart#, 
who continues to be the owner of the original 
knockabout. 
For a number of years, after 1892, the knock¬ 
about was the most popular racing class in 
Massachusetts Bay. The most famous of the 
21-foot knockabouts built and raced was prob¬ 
ably the Cock Robin. This yacht was de¬ 
signed and built by Herreshoff in 1896 for 
Charles S. Eaton, and in her races was sailed 
by William P. Fowle. 
During her racing career the Cock Robin 
pactically was invincible. She was renamed 
Clithroe and owned by Walter S. Dean. The 
last racing of the knockabouts as a class was 
during the season of 1909 at Marblehead. That 
year Frederick L. Gay, of the Boston Y. C. 
offered a cup for the class with the hope that 
it would revive interest in the 21-foot knock¬ 
abouts. 
Four or five boats took part in the races 
at Marblehead of the Boston Y. C., and the 
cup was won by the Aspinet. Last year, al¬ 
though Mr. Gay renewed his offer of a cup to 
the regatta committee of the club, no class was 
provided for the knockabouts. 
Of the two original knockabouts the Nancy 
and Jane, the Nancy is in existence laid up at 
the David Fenton Co.’s yard at Manchester. 
The Jane, up to the 1909 season, was used each 
year by Mr. Parker, but as the yacht was get¬ 
ting old and as he did not wish to place the 
Jane on the market, Mr. Parker had the old 
boat broken up. 
Before breaking up the Jane Mr. Parker 
made a small model of the yacht complete in 
every detail. This he presented to the Corin¬ 
thian Y. C., of Marblehead, and it is one of the 
prized yachting souvenirs of that club. 
the cup to the shelf of the Chicago Y. C., easily 
outsailing Susan II., or Jackson Park. 
Valmore repeated her victory of 1909 by de¬ 
feating the Amorita for the now famous Macki¬ 
nac cup in a grueling run before a good breeze 
and accompanied by a big following sea. Com¬ 
modore William Hale Thompson handled the 
big two sticker to a seaman’s satisfaction and 
deserves great praise for his dual victories. 
Beginning with calm and ending with a blow 
the Columbia Y. C. gave its annual Michigan 
City Derby. The little raceabout Invader won 
the time prize from a fleet of over forty of the 
best of the three Chicago clubs and the pick 
of the Macatawa Bay fleet. 
The two days’ racing around the Fourth of 
July over a triangular course was made the 
more spirited by the best of heavy-weather 
conditions. The winners in the nine different 
classes were evenly distributed between the 
Chicago, Columbia and Jackson Park fleets. 
Illinois, the crack 35-footer, skipped by Roy 
Barcal, won a leg on the new Clorac Cup by 
three times, defeating the other 35-foters in 
the Fourth of July Knights Templar and Jack- 
son Park regattas. This cup must be won 
three times by the same skipper instead of by 
the boat. 
Three time prizes were offered by the gener¬ 
ous Knights Templar for their regatta on Aug¬ 
ust 11. The small boat division was won hand¬ 
ily by the champion 20-footer Wenonah, the 
medium classes were led by Invader, while 
Vencedor annexed the large pitcher given to 
the winner among the big schooners, yawls and 
sloops. 
Jackson Park Y. C. sailors again showed the 
most lively and spirited contests on the lakes. 
Their large fleet of smaller yachts raced every 
Saturday, from Decoration day till after Labor 
day, going to Indiana Harbor, Waukegan and 
Michigan City. Wenonah won the lion’s share 
of cups and prizes, with the 21-footers Susan 
II. and Jackson Park evenly matched for sec¬ 
ond position. 
Of great credit to the South Side club is the 
fact that the only new yachts built on Lake 
Michigan during the year were in their 20-foot 
class, to which three fast boats were added, 
making a fleet of nine to face the starting line. 
In Deep Water. 
He was an affable old gentleman, and, as he 
is dead, what I here relate may be looked upon 
as a posthumous anecdote. Among his delight¬ 
ful qualities was an ability, while traveling, to 
entice strangers into conversation, his innocent 
personality removing all feeling of impertinence 
from his remarks. This, together with the 
delicate interest with which he followed a story, 
however technical, only rendered his attention 
more flattering to the teller. 1 he passion was 
of the Arabian Nights order, rather than one 
of curiosity or inquisitiveness, a desire to enter¬ 
tain and be entertained during the monotony of 
a journey. 
Jonah would have interested him. I can 
imagine their meeting—Jonah, returning home 
with a ticket supplied by the Derelict Mariners 
Society, being led to relate his trials, at the 
conclusion of which the quiet voice of the old 
gentleman would have been heard: , “Then 
there are whales in the Mediterranean!” imply¬ 
ing that he did not doubt the interesting story, 
coming as it did first hand, but, regarding the 
habitat of the whale, considered it a novel point, 
and one evidently overlooked by natural 
histories. 
In this instance Jonah was a yacht hand, a 
trifle hard of hearing, returning from South¬ 
ampton at the end of the season. Owing to a 
habit I have of dozing in trains I had evidently 
lost the opening gambit, so to speak, but 
roused myself in time to listen to the inter¬ 
rupted climax of the sailor’s somewhat tech¬ 
nical narrative. 
“Yis, yis! As I was saying. We ran into 
a swell.” 
“Didn’t you see him coming?” 
“Eh! No. It was getting dark as we got 
Universal Rule on the Lakes. 
Origin of the Knockabout. 
There seems to be a misunderstanding among 
yachtsmen as to the origin of the so-called 
knockabout rig, according to the Boston Globe. 
At least three designers have been mentioned 
in connection with the first -> r acht of that type. 
The knockabout rig, however, originated in 
Marblehead just nineteen years ago this com¬ 
ing spring, when- two boats that had been built 
at Gloucester for yachtsmen of that port ar¬ 
rived at that harbor early in the season. There 
were the Nancy, owned by Henry Taggard, and 
the Jane, owned by Herman Parker. A third 
boat of this type, the Trouble, was also under 
sail later in the summer. 
As the Nancy was launched about three weeks 
before the Jane this yacht of Henry Taggard’s 
was the first of the type. Mr. Taggard had 
been for several seasons sailing small sloops, 
cutters and catboats, none of which seemed to 
be just the type of small boat that he wanted. 
Carrying the ideas of the type of yacht that 
he desired to the firm of Stewart & Binney, 
the Nancy, a small and handy pleasure boat of 
good draft with outside ballast, carrying a jib- 
stay running to the stemhead, without a bow¬ 
sprit, was the result. 
The lines for this yacht and the Jane, which 
was ordered by Mr. Parker soon after were 
drawn by George Stewart, of the firm of which 
Arthur Binney, the well-known naval architect, 
Commodore Bayard Holmes, of the Jackson 
Park Y. C., has written a short review of the 
last season on Lake Michigan and made some 
comment on the recent adoption of the Uni¬ 
versal Rule of Measurement by the Association: 
Lake Michigan has been the scene of many 
successful cruising races during the yachting 
season of 1910, but withal the most important 
development was that of the adoption of the 
universal rule by the Lake Michigan Yachting 
Association in February. It must be remem¬ 
bered that virtually every association in the 
United States had accepted the displacement 
rule and had been sailing races under it for 
from one to three years. 
So many obstacles were in the way of its 
rapid use in Chicago that all races during the 
season were sailed under the old Sawanhaka 
measurement, but the prospects are that next 
season will see the beginning of what many 
sailors in Chicago think is an experiment, the 
universal rule as adopted by the Atlantic coast 
conference in 1906. 
One looks with great regret at the passing 
of the famous Lipton Cup class into decay. 
Although the three races developed keen sport 
and considerable interest to the spectator, 
nevertheless it is now three years since a new 
boat has been built to the class, and it behooves 
the Columbia Y. C. to look around for a radi¬ 
cal change somewhere. Spray again showed 
her all-round ability by taking another leg on 
