Rowland has owned Thistle since 1986 and sent in the following email (edited by your webmaster), and promises pictures soon

Webmaster Note: Rowland checked in on May 8, 2008 with news about Thistle which follows chronologically.

                                                                                                 Sept 19, 2007

Hi Ron

I don't have any digital pictures of the boat but I'll try to scan some snaps.  The boat was commissioned in Seattle in 1968 and named "Rainwitch." It has gone through a few owners prior to my purchase in late '85 or early "86. There was no name on the transom so I renamed the boat, "Thistle," supposedly good luck, seven letters, starts with a "T" like my last name, family is lowland Scots-Irish, etc.

The forepeak has been completely lined with a thin Styrofoam with western red cedar over. A beautiful job and it never sweats.  I don't race it any more so I put opening bronze ports in the salon and matching solids in the forepeak. It has a teak and holly sole. Two burner, propane Hillerange. It is the teak cockpit backs, teak hatches, teak cockpit grate (new) model that Yankee produced before they went to the molded liner and hatches in the early 70s. I have re-gelcoated the hull (last year) and I plan to re gel coat the top sides soon.  It standing rigging could stand replacing but maybe next year.

She's been around Vancouver Island, just about everywhere on the Sound and frequent trips up to the San Juan and Gulf Islands In the late eighties I talked to a guy in Cabo San Lucas who was from LA and was heading down to Panama and then to the Caribbean.  I don't know if he made it, but I bought him a case of Cervaza and wished him well.  It was a late sixties boat.

You should know that H&L Marine (original interior maker) is still in business and will make cabinetry for the interior.  They have done so for me twice.  The most recent was in 2002. (Webmaster Note: See contact info below)

My centerboard hit an old oyster pen (long story, big concrete) in Totten Inlet years ago and I went up to the Boeing surplus and bought a sheet of Kevlar armor (it stopped a 30-06 in an backyard test). It took three of us to carry a three by eight sheet and it dulled two saw blades but I have a bulletproof centerboard.

There are three Yankee Dolphins as well as a couple of Yankee 30s and aYankee 26 here in town. I've never seen a Pacific, the O’Days never made it here but I have heard rumors of someone in Portland making a boat every few years.

That's about it.  My wife, the power boater, just called to tell me to get home for dinner, so I'd better scoot.

 Rowland Thompson

Webmaster Note: Yankee's have always been admired for their interior woodworking detail. They used to have a basic website (now defunct), and a catalog that they will mail out, which I have received. Check directly with them if you need a replacement - they still may have the patterns

Their contact info is:

H & l Marine Woodwork, Inc.

2965 E. Harcourt St

Rancho Dominquez, CA 90221

Phones: 323 636 1718; 310 638 8746; fax 323 636 1720

email H.L@sbcglobal.net

Click here to see more

*************************

We received the following email on May 8, 2008 from Rowland (edited by the webmaster)

Ron,

I have been loaning Thistle every August to a publisher friend of mine from Walla Walla. He and his wife come for a couple of weeks and sail the South Puget Sound as far north as Tacoma.  They are blue water sailors having stepped off the treadmill a few years ago to sail a forty footer in the Sea of Cortez and the West Coast of Mexico. They moved to Walla Walla and sold the big boat. 

Well, they fell in love with the boat and have been prodding me to sell. Even though the boat is docked down the beach within walking distance I don't get out that much.  I can't sell it.  I have wanted one my entire formative years after seeing one at the 1968 Seattle Boat Show and literally keeping the brochure under my pillow through junior high and on my desk through high school and college. Infirmity is the only reason I would release possession.

I've always thought that partnerships made perfect sense for things that didn't see enough use so Larry and Roz Duthie and I are going to be partners.  A trailer is being purchased from King Trailers.  It will be fitted within the next 60 days and Larry, in the first flush of possession, is going to haul the boat over to Walla Walla in the Fall to begin a complete refit.

I gelcoated the hull during last year's haulout, but Larry is going to pull all the topside fittings and Imron the entire boat (he has an old dairy barn) and then refit and replace.  The boat will be making trips by trailer to Desolation Sound and the Sea of Cortez as well as San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay. It will be spending most of its near future at Wallula Gap on the Columbia River sailing the mid-Columbia (along Hanford Reach) and Snake Rivers.

That's my news.  More later

Rowland