Charlie has not raced Arion but he has sailed her**(see below) numerous times to Block Island, the Vineyard, Newport, Shelter Island and Montauk. He also sailed her on the Hudson River keeping her in Newport Marina in Jersey City for a couple of seasons, and one season at the 79th street boat basin in NYC. He thinks she has her original spruce mast which is fitted with lovely old brass fittings. He bought her from Mark Disanti in 1987 and her name then was Arion - we are going to try and track Mark down and fill in a few more gaps in Arion/Yankee's past.
In 2007 Field Investigator, Chris Becker, discovered in a Mamaroneck, NY boatyard, a green Dolphin with a wood house, an inboard and Setauket as her home port painted on her stern. On September 5, 2008 we had a major breakthrough. Chris saw her sailing near Larchmont, NY and she had the number 71 on her sails. He subsequently found out her owner was a member of Horseshoe Harbor Yacht Club in Larchmont and emailed me. I emailed the yacht club and asked if they had a member who owned a green Dolphin and the next day Charlie Drew emailed me he was the guy!
Arion was once Yankee, the first Dolphin built in 1964/65 by John Shumaker the founder of Yankee Yachts. She was built on a bare hull made by O'Day and shipped to southern California in 1964. In the several conversations your webmaster has had with John over the past 18 months he inevitably asks if we had ever come across his old Yankee - all he knew was that it had been shipped east. I am really looking forward to telling him we found her.
On September 1, we got the following (edited) email from Charlie:
Hi Ron
Thanks so much for writing. Arion is indeed the boat built by Yankee Yachts in the early 1960s. The hull is green now--and has been for as long as I can remember. We have owned her for over 18 years. I just spent a huge amount of money to have her entire deck replaced by Taylor and Snediker in Paucatuck. I find it hard to keep up with the woodwork, but keep pressing on as best as I can.
We sail her all the time.
Charlie Drew
On September 19 we got the following email and wonderful pictures of Arion from Charlie. We'll get more of Arion's/Yankee's story soon.
Hi Ron
I just took some pictures of Arion. They are attached. Please use whatever suits.
I am delighted about this web site. Many thanks for getting in touch.
Charlie Drew
In a subsequent email Charlie provided some additional interesting info that appears below the photos.
The decks had developed some leaking a dry rot, particularly around through deck fittings, port and starboard shrouds especially, but also sections of the deck where glass laminate was beginning to come up from the plywood--by one of the starboard scuppers and on the port quarter. In 2006 - 2007 I had the house, cockpit and lazarette cover lifted off and the entire deck demolished. New deck (w dynel I believe), new toe rails, glassed cockpit, new frame around lazarette hatch. As to the house itself, the original turtle had started to go. They replaced the top of the turtle and then glassed it over (not nearly as handsome, but now dry). The rest of the house is mahogany, I believe, and original, as far as I know. One of the portside ports had developed a leak, which they attended to. A good bit of the bracing along the hull where the deck attaches was bad and got replaced.
This is a Yanmar 1 GM 10 diesel. The old gas engine was replaced in the early 90's when the cooling jacket started to disintergrate. During the recent renovation the engine was pulled, thoroughly gone over and reseated with a new exhaust system.
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** Webmaster Note: Charlie advises that Arion is a figure from Greek mythology with an interesting story involving music and other things, and a dolphin who rescues him when he is cast into the sea by thieving mariiners. This story can be found by clicking on http://www.online-mythology.com/arion/. Tradition requires that I refer to our Dolphins as females - "she", "her", etc. When a male name appears on one of our boats I am frozen in the past, unable to use "he" or "his". This problem must have come up for others...
