Professional BoatBuilder - December-January 2018

20 PROFESSIONAL BOATBUILDER

I

f you know nothing else about salt-

water sportfishing, you probably

know the name Rybovich. Operated by

Rybovich brothers Tommy, John, and

Emil, the storied West Palm Beach,

Florida, yard founded in 1919 by their

father, John, started in the late 1940s

designing and building the sport sh-

ing boats that would de ne and re ne

the type and the sport they served for

at least the next half century. When

senior editor Paul Lazarus visited the

yard for this magazine in 1993 (see Pro-

fessional BoatBuilder No. 25) about 20

years a er the Rybovich brothers sold

the company, he found a still-thriving

custom boatbuilder that was pushing

innovations in hullform, materials, and

propulsion with every build. He wrote:

“Intentionally, evolution of the Rybo-

vich product tends to be subtle and

gradual—to the bene t of the entire

line.  e new boats get better, while the

older ones hold their value.”

Drop into the Rybovich yard today

and you’ll  nd a well-appointed and

-run superyacht service and re t center

(see Comments in PBB No. 143, page 3)

but none of the obsessively focused

development of custom sport sher-

men that de ned the original boat-

building company and made its name

iconic enough that investors could jus-

tify pouring millions of dollars into a

Above—Reid Bandy replacing the bottom structure and topside frames in his Rybovich 36 (11m) Timid Tuna. The arched

frames aft will de ne the new tunnel, necessitated by the change to single-engine propulsion. Facing page—Timid Tuna, with her

hull restored to the historically correct pink  nish, is  tted with a modern Corecell-and- berglass deck and cabin structure.

Two classic Rybovich 36 sport shermen are

unconventionally restored at Bandy Boats.

Text by

Aaron Porter

Photographs by

John Bildahl

(except where noted)

Rybovich Rebuild × 2

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