The modern transition began, fittingly, with a berth. In 2012, the City of San Francisco’s renovation of the Marina’s West Harbor ended the arrangement under which Yankee had lain on the westernmost dock since the 1920s — some eighty-five years within a hundred yards of the ways that built her — and she was obliged, in McNeill’s account, to move to a different and less suitable berth. It was the first breach in a continuity that had survived a world war, a theft, and two earthquakes.

By the late 2010s, the generational cycle had turned again. The family members who had been most active in Yankee’s care were aging. John McNeill and Jon Price, both now in their eighties, were the last two people actively responsible for the vessel. A new stewardship structure was needed. Around 2019–2020, ownership of Yankee was transferred from the family LLC to the West Coast Seafaring Society (WCSS), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission of preserving both the yacht and the classic maritime skills needed to operate her. The founding document, drafted by Jonathan Price and others in May 2021, laid out the society’s educational goals, funding plan, and Yankee’s role as its flagship vessel.

Unfortunately, the transition coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. Yankee had been halfway through her traditional twenty-year restoration cycle, this time with the most demanding hull work (frames, stem, and lower planking) completed at KKMI, when the pandemic halted the project and closed the yard to volunteers. She was moved to a berth at Loch Lomond Marina in San Rafael, where she sat without her rig, rails, or sheer planking. Her spars, a new suit of North sails, her rigging, and hundreds of board feet of premium old-growth Douglas fir went into storage.

In November 2025, John McNeill circulated an appeal to friends and former crew: Yankee needed new people. Two octogenarians were the last responsible parties, and roughly $200,000 was needed to complete the restoration and return her to the water. Latitude 38 carried the word to the wider Bay in its November 2025 “Sightings” column: “Yankee Needs a New Home.”