The Linderman family, circa 1950 San Francisco Bay

Y36 VENTURE and friends, 2000

Y36 VENTURE at CWB, 2003

VENTURE was built by John Linderman, in Alameda, California and launched in 1949.

John was working at the Stone Boatyard and he built a series of three Yankees in his spare time (weekends and holidays). VENTURE was his first.

VENTURE was fastened with a mixture of iron and bronze. The iron was WWII surplus. John salvaged a bronze shaft from a powerboat for her rudderpost.

The Linderman family still has the silver racing trophy from VENTURE's first Lightship Race. John's son, Jim, can't recall losing a race in her. After the Lindermans sold VENTURE, she continued her impressive racing career in the Bay for the next few decades.

In an ambitious but unsucessful effort to establish an active Yankee racing fleet in the Pacific Northwest, VENTURE was shipped to Seattle in 1985 along with CLIPPER and DOODLE.

VENTURE's first Seattle owners soon traded her in on a motor-home, and the racing boat sat in the parking lot of an RV dealership, next to a highway, for a year.

My friend John Watkins then brought her to the Center for Wooden Boats (CWB), on Lake Union. VENTURE was a good addition to the museum because of her large cockpit and classic design. She was fun for visitors to sail, and looked great on display at the dock.

I bought VENTURE from John in 2000. I'd been sailing her 4 years, and thought she was the most graceful sailboat I'd ever known. She was sinking from a hole in her stern, and needed a new transom right away. I anticipated substancial repairs, but felt she was worth it.

We immediately rebuilt the stern, and the wood that we removed was so waterlogged and heavy that my guess is that she was 500 lbs lighter after that work.

We did a ton of additional work during the next 5 years, but ultimately, there wasn't a piece of wood on VENTURE that wasn't asking to be replaced, including the backbone and the planks. Probably the biggest two things that worked against this boat were its mix of bronze and iron fasteners, and the fact that she had sunk at her mooring around 1980. And somewhere along the line, she'd had at least one or two neglectful owners.

Some people are not bothered by cutting up a boat. I found it heartbreaking. But with VENTURE truly at the end of her life, I commissioned a new Yankee One-Design to be built by the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding (NWSWB) in Port Hadlock, WA. VENTURE's lead ballast, bronze hardware, tiller, hatch cover, and spirit went into Y44, GEMINI. Lofting began in January of 2009, and GEMINI was launched in the summer 2010.
 
- Sarah B. Howell
Seattle, Washington, May 2011