The Refit of a Yankee 30

Some semi-serious reflections on fixing up a sailboat.

Interior décor—

I’m not sure what the original color scheme of the boat was, but when I got it, the floor and some of the interior walls were battleship gray and the ceiling was off-white. (One of my sons referred to that particular color as “puke white”, but I didn’t think that was very polite.). To top that off, someone had convinced the Yankee manufacturing company that what they needed in their new Sparkman & Stephen designed yachts was fire-engine red vinyl cushions and fake-wood paneling. Sitting inside, sometimes I felt like I’d been kidnapped and brought to live in a 1966 Ford station wagon.

One of the strangest manufacturing choices was to combine their use of natural wood in the main bulkheads with the fake-wood in parts of the main cabin. The bright red cushions with white piping I could understand—a memory of another age—but the fake-wood look had me puzzled.

Forward

Aft

The first step in retaining my sanity in the face of this visual onslaught was painting the ceiling and the walls a semi-gloss off white. All the natural wood of course I left alone. The fake-wood siding disappeared behind a few coats of paint. The floor I painted beige in order to mimic the beige of the exterior non-skid.

Most importantly for the sake of my remaining vision, I covered the extremely bright red cushions with some blue upholstery with white piping. I had a cost-effective non-marine oriented seamstress sew them, so I avoided the usual 50% marine mark-up that seems to apply to anything used for boating. I chose Sunbrella for the material, so they’d be durable.

It may not be the most original interior, but it’s pleasant. And at least I didn’t need to squint from the bright red glare off the cushions anymore, or keep staring in wonder at the fake-wood appliqué.

Paint—

If I ever get the impulse to paint an old boat again, please tie me down to a gurney and keep me sedated until I get over it. First—let me say in highly technical terms—painting the exterior of a boat ain’t so easy. To add to that, I had the great inspiration to do both the interior paint and the exterior paint at roughly the same time, since we’d have the boat torn apart anyway. So, what it all lead to was situations like this:

On the other hand, it also eventually lead to pictures like this:

Portlights—

The original portlights were lower-end portlights and deadlights. They were so scratched that you couldn’t see clearly out of them. With their plastic knobs, they also had a cheesy look to them—not very inspiring in terms of their strength. I talked to a representative of the manufacturer at a boat show, and he said they were basically intended for inland and light use. I guess they would have withstood being hit repeatedly with some heavy seas, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

There was a challenge in replacing them. The openings furthest aft were deadlights (non-opening) that weren’t square but rather had a trapezoidal shape—slanted in the back. Forward, the two portlights were slightly different sizes, with the most forward one being slightly larger.

This gave me an interesting situation—all 4 of the portlights or deadlights on each side were a different size. I ordered one size of portlight for the rear 2 openings, and another size for the front 2. In order to figure out which size to get, I looked at what portlights were available and guessed which ones would look good. Then I cut out pieces of cardboard in the exact size of those portlights and taped them in place on the hull, eyeing it to see whether I thought it would look ok once they were in place.

I felt a little weird about messing with a Sparkman & Stevens design, but hey—I couldn’t see out the windows, and I doubt that they were the ones who spec’d that line of portlights to begin with.

As I remember, the portlight manufacturer offered the frames in a brushed metal look, but I decided to have the boatyard paint the frames white to blend in with the hull. Also, I was concerned with the size of the most forward portlight—with the frame I thought it might look so large as to conflict with the lines of the forward part of the cabintop. So we painted the frames white.

Once I received the portlights, there was the challenge of installing them. Before the boat was painted, the more forward 2 portlight openings on each side were fiberglassed in. The whole assembly was painted over so that it would have a uniform appearance. New holes were cut out for the forward 2 portlights. In the case of the trapezoidal rear portlight,I believe that was partially glassed in and then cut so it was square after it was painted over, but I don’t remember for sure—the new portlights may have been larger than the old opening, so we may have just had to cut out the old deadlight openings to the new size. Note the glassed-in forward lights:

Back in the water:

Final cut:

I think I lucked out in terms of how it looked when I was done. But what I was most happy about was that they all opened and that you could actually see out of them. Anything more than that was gravy.

Deck lines led aft –-

I had the brilliant inspiration of leading all the lines aft. This is a popular thing to do in many boats, but I’m not so sure this is a great idea, especially in a boat the size of a Yankee. You end up with a heck of a lot of lines on the cabintop, and near the winches. It’s not a big deal, and mostly a matter of personal preference as to whether you lead the reefing lines aft or leave them up near the mast, but the phrase “spaghetti factory” was heard more than once. Leading them aft does offer you the supposed benefit of not having to leave the cockpit to reef—and when singlehanding on this boat that is purportedly a benefit. You can easily put a reef in the main from the cockpit. Just remember to practice making nice neat coils with your unused lines…

I left the halyard winches up on mast (of course) so that if I or a subsequent owner wants to go back to reefing the main up at the mast, no problem

Primary winches--

The old primary winches were huge Barient 19’s, non-self-tailing. There was a cam cleat located behind them where you were theoretically supposed to cleat off the jib sheet after winching in the line.

Right.

If the boat had come with a masseur that would pop up out of a locker and work on your shoulders after every tack, maybe that would have worked fine.

Call me lazy and spoiled, but this cam cleat system--a monument to the stalward sailors of old-- was replaced with Harken 40ST self-tailing winches.

Now, where was that Margarita I was mixing...

The traveler--

The old traveler had a non-ball-bearing car. The control line lead back from the traveler to a cam cleat about 18 inches aft of the traveler on each side of the companionway. That traveler had a lot of friction under load and was hard to pull. And if you could somehow manage to get the traveler where you wanted it, good luck in getting the line cleated in the cam cleat.

The whole operation typically turned into a wrestling match—one which I usually lost.

The new traveler has ball bearings, and also has cam cleats that cleat off the line right at the end of the traveler. You can cleat the line from any angle.

Yeehah!

Mast collar--

Down near the base of the mast there were single blocks that were located permanently in specific spots . Besides the fact that they limited the positioning of your blocks, that particular bunch of blocks was pretty old and creaky. They also represented a lot of holes in the deck.

They were replaced with a custom fabricated mast collar. Now you can move the blocks to whatever position you want. You can also replace them more easily, without having to unscrew something from the deck.

I also happen to think that this piece of metal borders on being industrial sculpture.

Who’d a thunk--found art, on a Yankee 30. Or maybe—foundary art.

(Sorry).

Propane---

One set of owners before me had put a Force 10 stove in the boat, which was great. However, they also put the propane tank for it underneath the companionway stairs in the galley. Yes, that’s right, and with no proper propane locker for it or vent, either. (This is considered highly unadvisable, since propane if it leaks is heavier than air and will congregate in the low point of a boat—before it explodes. Therefore, there are strictures about how propane systems have to be installed.) Now, before the readers who are marine surveyors faint dead away, let me say that the owner immediately before me dealt with this issue by simply removing both the stove and the propane locker. Quite effective. However, that meant there was no stove. I reinstalled the stove.

Finding a place to put a propane tank was fairly devilish, though. The freeboard on the Yankee is fairly low, and finding a spot where a tank could fit—well, it wasn’t easy. I decided to make it foolproof and hang a small propane tank off the stern pulpit, and then cover it with a blue canvas cover. This has worked great. Shortly after I installed the tank I had a solenoid installed as well to make the whole installation according to Hoyle.

Dinette—

You don’t see too many dinettes on modern boats nowadays, but they do have their advantages. One nice aspect was that the table can drop down and form the platform for a nice double bunk.

I got rid of the original table. It was about 4 inches thick, had a drawer inside of it that made it even heavier, was made of about ¾” plywood with laminate on top of it, and it weighed a ton. It was too heavy for me to bother using it in its drop down position, which in some ways defeated one of its best features. Also, it was much larger than the table I have now—it extended into the main cabin as far as the inboard edge of the settee. On the positive side, that made for a great working surface, and a nice dining surface for 4. On the negative side, it was hard to shimmy into the inside position with such a wide table, and more importantly the table protruded so far into the cabin that two people couldn’t pass each other in the main cabin. That could lead to some awkward backing up.

The new table isn’t the fanciest piece of woodworking I’ve ever done, but it works. If I get more ambitious, I’ll round off the inboard corners and put some teak trim around the sides.

Galley—

One aspect of the Mark I galley that escaped me for a few years was that the companionway stairs are built to retract into the space under the companionway. That leaves the galley sole open and permits free movement back and forth between the stove and the sink.

That was an interesting feature to figure out, but frankly I never bother and don’t really notice the stairs as I cook. I guess I just get used to swerving around things as I move on a boat and the slight protrusion of the stairs doesn’t register. I’d rather keep a garbage bin under there anyway than to leave it open so that I can move the stairs.

Asymmetrical spinnaker--

One of my favorite experiments has been the addition of an asymmetrical spinnaker. What great fun—and very useful, too. It took me a while to figure out that a sail like this was needed. But my downwind light-air performance at first was not so great. When I looked at the original sail plan, I noticed that Stephens had designed a 165% genoa as the largest sail. This sail swept way back on the boat, with the edge almost at the primary winches. (Of course, there were no asymmetrical spinnakers per se in use in 1972). Since I didn’t have a 165 jib, the boat was not very sprightly in winds of less than 4 knots. The addition of the spinnaker changed that, and took away the one weak point in the boat’s performance. Actually, once I added the spinnaker, I realized that the light-air downwind performance hadn’t been a weak point at all—it was just that I hadn’t been using a sail that was as large and light as the sails they’d originally spec’d for those conditions.

Conclusion

So, was it worth it? I guess it depends on your perspective. I have a friend who's a cave diver - he scuba dives into caves. The slogan on his webpage is: "the difference between an ordeal and an adventure is attitude."

It was an adventure.