For Customer Information
Yankee Yachts Construction methods
A Yankee Yacht is considered one of THE FINEST production boats on the market today. We are called the Rolls Royce of the boating industry because of our standards of quality. For your information, we will point out a few of the reasons why.
FIRST: We have the finest designers in the world. Their experience in yacht design goes back to when designers had to design, sail and build to acquire experience for good, fast boats. Always remember that good boats do not come without hard long experience.
SECOND: All our hulls and decks are 100% hand lay-up fiberglass - no chopper gun structure. We have temperature and relative humidity control in our laminating department. (Very serious defects can result, immediately or at some future time, if fiberglass is subject to substantial changes in temperature and humidity during lay-up.)
THIRD: When our larger hulls are removed from the mold, they are placed directly into a fiberglass basket which is the same shape as our mold, and our smaller hulls set into cradles carefully aligned, braced and supported. They are not removed from these baskets or supported cradles until all the bulkheads, stringers, engine and deck are bonded into place and the hull is thoroughly cured. This time-consuming and expensive method is the only way any boat manufacturer can guarantee no twisted hulls, no warpage, and uniformity for an I.O.R. standard hull measurement.
FOURTH: Our masts and rigs are designed for optimum performance and pressure. The mast is keel-stepped, even on our smallest models, rather than stepped on the deck. This method is more costly but is used by the finest builders in the world and insures sound sturdy rigs aloft. Mast wall thickness specifications have to be more exact. Because of this we cannot use standard aluminum extrusions as other manufacturers do; however our safety and performance factors can be foretold. Our Yankee 28 and Yankee 26 masts are elliptical in shape and have to be drawn through special dies (at added expense) in order to meet Sparkman & Stephens design requirements. Our Yankee 30 and Yankee 38 mast extrusions must be built for us by La Fiell (who manufacture helicopter blades) in order to meet rigid wall thickness uniformity and design specifications. They are special roll-flo sections, one-piece, weldless masts, tempered to endurance specifications. Our La Fiell spreaders are tapered air foils, combined with lightness and strength for ultimate endurance aloft.
FIFTH: Because of our special high-performance spars, our standing rigging has to meet equally special rigid specifications. Heavier wire thickness and tensile strength have to be exact. Larger, more costly turnbuckles must be used, and more costly dies have to be employed for maximum swaging efficiency.
SIXTH: Because of our maximum structure spars and rigging, we cannot connect our shrouds to just a bulkhead or thru-bolt them to the hull sides - they would rip out or begin to fracture as so many other boats do after a period of time. Therefore, our chainplates have to be attached to specially hand-laminated fiberglass knees necessary as an integral part of the hull. In order to do this, a steel jig is placed in the hull while it is still in the mold, and the lamination is started four feet fore and aft of the chain plate area, patiently hand laid-up layer after layer, curing between each layer so as not to generate too much heat and warp the hull structure, until a full 1" thickness of solid fiberglass and reinforcing 8 feet wide, and from the sheer down to the turn of the bilge, is obtained. Only then can we bolt through our chain plates. A costly and time-consuming method, but the only effective and efficient way to insure strength and safety to rig and hull.
SEVENTH: Our keels are solid lead bolted on to the exterior of the hull. The designer uses the exterior method to achieve a finer designed fin keel with minimum water resistance. Very few builders use this method. It also allows Yankee Yachts to fair the leading and trailing edges for maximum underbody hull speed. Our keels are attached through the hull with solid silicon bronze keel bolts. (We will not, under any circumstances, use galvanized bolts as some builders do). Our Yankee 38 keel is through bolted with seventeen 1" silicon bronze bolts and additional eight 5/8" silicon bolts in the leading flair area. Our Yankee 30, 28, and 26 are thru-bolted with seven 7/8" silicon bronze bolts. This is a costly safety requirement unsurpassed by any other builder.
EIGHTH: We use a full skeg rudder. This configuration enables the rudder to be supported at the base as well as the top for easy handling on the helm. This leading skeg directs the water flow smoothly across the rudder with a minimum of water turbulence and resistance.
NINTH: We are the only boat manufacturer who build hull laminations to the ratio of glass roving and resin of the designer specifications. To our knowledge, Sparkman & Stephens are the only designers who lay out hull construction percentages, thickness and strengths. I might add these specifications are not called for by the designer as DESIRED SPECIFICATIONS, but they are the specifications needed to secure safety of hull, keel and rig, to withstand the severe punishment applied by wind and sea. Our new designs for the IOR Mark III rule are high-performance boats with tremendously high aspect ratio rigs to obtain maximum hull speed under ANY weather conditions. Yankee Yachts builds a fast boat for both light and heavy air conditions, and also the QUALITY of boat to withstand the severest pressures Mother Nature can dish out. A very good example was the World One Ton Championships held in Australia in December of 1972. Three American boats were chosen to represent the U.S. and race against 12 European boats, several of which were built in Australia for Australian weather conditions. The Championship was sailed under the most severe conditions - winds of 50 to 70 knots along with tremendously strong cross currents, high and unpredictable seas, the severest conditions ever dished out to the new U.S. designs. The Sparkman & Stephens designed One Ton Yankee 38 survived five major races under these conditions with no construction, bulkhead or rigging failures during the entire series. The other two U.S. boats had bulkhead and rigging damage. One in particular had to D.N.F. one race for fear of losing her mast. Several of the European boats, including some Australian boats, also had severe damage to their rigs. Besides our superior hull, keel and rigging points, you will find the Yankee interior accommodations and craftsmanship also unsurpassed by any other builder in the United States, and will match any of the finest European production yachts on the market. Our yachts are not built as a Sunday afternoon toy (as you know, toys used for other than what they are built for, break!) Yankee Yachts retains the finest designs, builds the finest glass construction and rigging you can buy. We give the customer as sound boat, a sound investment which will give years of pleasure and last a lifetime. I urge you to know your product before you buy, to make sure your family can rest assured that when they go out on a weekend cruise, they can also be assured to return for another day.
Sincerely, YANKEE YACHTS
Thanks to Tony Rodrigues S/V Enigma, YY30 #107, for providing the "Customer Information, Yankee Yachts Construction Methods" document web site by Steve Botts SBOTTS@SBCGLOBAL.NET copyright © 1998-2001 all rights reserved updated 12/16/01 Back to Yankee 30 Home Page