Santa Cruz Yachts
American yacht design and manufacturing company (1973–)
Santa Cruz Yachts was an American yacht design and manufacturing company. The company's offices and production facilities were located in Santa Cruz, California, before being moved to Green Cove Springs, Florida. Santa Cruz Yachts has produced award-winning designs and these boats have performed well in racing including long-distance ocean racing.
History
Santa Cruz Yachts was founded under the name Bill Lee Yachts, after the founder Bill Lee. They were originally located in “the chicken coop” in Santa Cruz, California.
The company's focus was on producing ultra-light, high-performance racing yacht designs, generally offering amenities for long-distance voyages. In 1977, the 66-foot (20 m) Merlin model was considered unseaworthy by critics; however, the boat proved to be capable of 28 knots (52 km/h) surfing and won the 1977 Transpacific Yacht Race from California to Hawaii in record time, with an average speed of 11 knots (20 km/h) over 2,250 miles. In 1981, the Merlin model again won the Transpac, but this time seven of the top ten finishes were the Santa Cruz 50, a scaled down production version of Merlin. A 50-foot (15 m) Santa Cruz yacht weighs about 16,000 pounds, with half of that weight in the ballast of the keel; this is very light compared to the 30,000 pounds normally associated with a 50-foot (15 m) boat.
Modern history
Santa Cruz Yachts produced boats made-to-order.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7419441. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Santa Cruz Yachts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.