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I am one of the former owners of Impetuous. I bought her with a partner in 1987. She had been somewhat neglected cosmetically, but was in good mechanical condition. She had been seriously raced by the previous owner and was something of a legend in the Long Beach/LA Port area. That owner, a Naval officer (can't remember his name, but he had just retired - it will come to me some day at 2:30 AM), added winches, replaced the Atomic 4 with the Volvo diesel, lengthened the boom (a real pain!), added the dual slot forestay, and equipped her with about 15 bags of sails. That 200 drifter was welcome on some of those light wind days off the SoCal coast. We routinely beat everything in her class and we used to kick some serious 36' butt on runs over to Catalina!

When we bought her, her bottom was weedy, her topside covered with coal dust from the port (she was in the marina at the Naval Shipyard), and belowdecks was not livable. We took her to San Pedro (not Cabrillo Marina initially) and hauled her. Scraped the bottom and found only a couple of very small blisters (Yankee built one hell of a boat!) and renewed her bottom paint. Also cleaned up the cabin, constructed a new table in the salon, overhauled the engine, replaced shaft seals,and replaced or repaired halyards and stays. Generally cleaned her up, oiled the teak, covered the myriad gauges in the cockpit, connected an autohelm, added some solar-powered ventilation, etc. You will notice a patch on her starboard side, just aft of amidships. That was the exhaust from the Atomic 4 on the first boats. Yankee apparently changed that later. The owner prior to us moved the exhaust to the stern when he replaced the Atomic 4.

Also the combination of the skeg-mounted rudder, the folding prop, and the position of the prop close to the keel makes for some interesting behavior when backing - you can back several boat lengths with the helm hard over, and she will not turn to port. Starboard is fine. Almost put her on the rocks the first time we tried to back out of the slip, creating much laughter from adjoining slips!!

I enjoyed sailing her for only about two and a half years, as I moved to Alaska. My partner, who was a professor at Caltech, and his son then sailed her for another year until he began ill and subsequently died. I sold my half to another individual and lost track of her. I did stop by Cabrillo in 1995 and saw her in the same slip, though I do not know who owned her then. She looked pretty tired at that time.

I have since returned to California and still sail, but I no longer own a boat. Had a Benateau 405 in the BVI for a few years, and that was a fine boat for cruising around the Caribbean. However, the Yankee 30 - that was sailing. Another acquaintance and an investment banker was the captain of Yankee's racing team starting in 1971 (his name will also come back to me early some morning!). He has since sailed a lot of big ocean racers in the TransPac, but still waxes nostalgic about the Yankee. Hope you get her back in shape and back in the water. I would not remove those winches until you have sailed her a bit. You might find you like them!

Best,
John
John Sibert
GFG China Holdings
6665 Zumirez Drive
Malibu, CA 90265
Phone: 310 457-4820
Fax: 310 457-3902