Sparkman & Stephens Original Yankee

Irving and Exy Johnsons spent many years planning  the design of YANKEE. Her thick Coreten steel hull is rust resistant and rugged enough to withstand the rigors of tying up to the stone walls of canals or grounding in the shallow waters. In fact, her design allows her to nose up to a river bank and drop her crew off to explore. During her first year of travel through the canals and rivers of Europe, she transited over 600 locks and they never used a dinghy to get ashore. The easily handled ketch rig combined with the twin centerboards, allow many different combinations of sail area and balance which makes her very easy to sail offshore with a small crew. The Johnsons also used the centerboards to keep her in place on the shallow canals while waiting for the locks to open. She is a very roomy boat for the planned crew of 4 but she has berhts for  8.

YANKEE is a part of yachting history and many article have been written about her in NAtional Geographixc and other magazines. For the past 12 years the vessel has been operated privately by her current owners . They’ve sailed her from Cape Breton Nova Scotia to the Caribbean and up and down the East Coast from Maine to Florida. During these years her systems have been up graded. In 2009 after many years of working with the USCG, the vessel received a certificate of inspection to carry up to 22 passengers on lakes bays and sounds. She began doing limited commercial work in the summer of 2010 offering day trips on the Connecticut river and Long Island Sound.