History of 'Yesterday'

When Yesterday shipped from the Chris-Craft plant in Pampano Beach, Florida on July 3, 1968, This Guy's in Love with You by Herb Alpert was the #1 song on the radio. The top movie at the box office was The Green Berets and the hottest novel in America was Airport by Arthur Hailey.  The average new car would cost you about $2,800 and it was 34 cents a gallon to fill it up. The average household income was $7,850 per year and the average new home price was $14,950.

Yesterday was one of 34 57-foot Constellations hand-crafted by Chris-Craft in 1968. Frank Starace of Ray’s Chris-Craft Sales & Service in City Island, New York took delivery of the yacht and sold it to Donald Bruce Burns on August 8, 1968. The price of the boat was $150,000, which in today’s dollars is just over $1 million. Of course, that was a very long time ago and Yesterday's seen a lot of nautical miles and a lot of owners since then.

On June 1, 1972, Mr. Burns sold the boat to Jack O’Mahony. Mr. O'Mahony kept the boat for a little over a year and sold the boat to Chris Charters, Inc. on September 5, 1973 where it was used as a charter vessel. Chris Charters sold it to a corporation called Renegade IV, Inc., which was the new name of the boat. 

This is where the history begins to get a little murky and a bit more interesting. One of the former owners says, to the best of his recollection, that the principal owner in Renegade IV was murdered in Mexico. The circumstances aren’t clear. Something nefarious apparently took place. According to the story, the boat ended up being seized by U.S. Marshals and was sold at public auction.

A company called Camp-George Associates, Inc. bought the boat at auction in 1984 and named it ‘High Bid,‘ since they were the high bidders in the auction. They sold the boat to Robert C. Twombly of Media, Pennsylvania four years later on October 10, 1988. Twombly renamed the boat ‘Jammin.’

On October 23, 1995, the boat changed hands again. This time it was purchased by William and Gaye Dryfoos of Oxford, Maryland. They rechristened the boat Yesterday and lived aboard her for several years.

Mrs. Dryfoos preceded her husband in death. When Bill Dryfoos died in 2007, his estate sold the boat to Mark Rowan of Palm Beach who moved the boat from Annapolis down to Florida. Mr. Rowan died in 2013 and, upon his passing, the boat was donated to the Marine Industry Education Foundation of Riviera Beach, Florida. They sold it to Mike Brill of Brill Maritime, Inc. He sold it, briefly, to John Henry Walker of Seal Beach, California in early 2014. Walker had plans to transfer the boat back to California, but once he realized he could only transfer it via water and he’d have to go all the way down through the Panama Canal, he sold it back to Brill.

In June of 2014 Mike Brill sold the boat to Phil Valentine and Yesterday began the long trek from Fort Pierce, FL to her new home in Tennessee.