Palmer Johnson is shutting down their facility in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, after they complete the 170-footer they're currently building, and re-locating to the Netherlands... Pays to be closer to the Russian billionaires, I suppose...

OK, so they probably haven't built a sailing yacht in almost 20 years, and none of their recent megayacht builds have stayed in the Great Lakes, or are flying the Stars & Stripes from their sterns... But there was a time when they were building some of the most iconic sailing/racing yachts of a generation... Most famous among them, the legendary S&S 61 DORA IV built for Lynn Williams... She was later bought by some guy named Ted Turner, who re-named her TENACIOUS, and won the infamous '79 Fastnet with her... With her subsequent owner Warren Brown of Bermuda, she was cruised to such far-flung places like Svalbard, and Greenland... Tell me, who's making boats like that, anymore?

Here are the links to the closing, and the move to Europe...

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/door-co/news/2015/09/02/palmer-johnson-close-facility/71605252/

http://www.superyachttimes.com/editorial/62/article/id/14963

There's also a thread over on CRUISING ANARCHY... Two posts in particular are worth reading, wonderful memories from a guy obviously intimately involved with PJ for 40 years or more... they're included in this one link, book-ending my reply in the middle...

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=168140&p=5059512

The pic below illustrates one of my favorite sights on the Erie Canal... Just past Lock 17 at Little Falls, this bit of grafitti is still there 40 years later, from the day yachts like TENACIOUS and RUNNING TIDE made the trek on their own bottoms to race the Chicago-Mac... TENACIOUS and KAHILI II were both built in Sturgeon Bay...