Dolphin24.org - A Website For Dolphin Owners and Others Interested in this Classic Design

I owned Yankee Dolphin hull # 141 which I bought in King Harbor, Redondo Beach, CA in the mid 80's. I gutted the main cabin with a sawzall and built a nice teak interior. I built a propane locker in the forward end of the cockpit footwell with a teak lid which reduced the size of the footwell for offshore sailing. I mounted a Navik self-steering vane on it and got an Autohelm 1000. I added a small solar panel also and rebuilt the entire rig. The mainsail and working jib were original and I added a 155 genoa, a 120 reefable genoa, a storm jib, and a cruising spinnaker. I also added a set of self-tailing lewmar winches on the coamings and moved the original winches aft a bit as secondary winches

In November of 1987 I set sail from Mission Bay on a five year cruise thru Central America, the Canal and into the Caribbean. What a great boat! On a trip from Newport Beach to Mission Bay (bouy to bouy) the boat averaged 6.6 knots on a broad reach in light to medium air. In a winter storm off of Isla Guadalupe, Baja California, running under a storm jib alone, the boat took three knockdowns in one night but popped right back up and just kept on going. That was early on in my cruise and really solidified my faith in the construction and design of the boat. I can't think of a better pocket cruiser for the money. . . attractive design, good speed for her waterline, tough. I'm amazed that Old Boat Magazine hasn't featured the Yankee Dolphin or Pacific Dolphin**. I named her after my mom as a promise to her before she died of cancer. . . Barbara Joyce. She was ultimately destroyed by an arsonist in Cartagena, Colombia.

John, Barbara Joyce