At Van Dam Custom Boats, old and new have learned to coexist very, very well. Nowhere is that more evident than in Italmas — a 44-foot cold-molded wooden sloop designed by Stephens Waring Yacht Design and built by the Van Dam crew in Boyne City, Michigan. Written about in depth by Van Dam president Ben Van Dam himself for Epoxyworks magazine, the story of Italmas is as much about how she was built as it is about what she became: a world-class cruising vessel shaped for daysailing and extended passages on the Great Lakes, exuding the grace and distinction of yachts from the 1940s and 50s — while quietly outperforming nearly everything around her.
Her specifications tell part of the story. At 44 feet LOA with a 12-foot 6-inch beam, a 6-foot 6-inch draft, 1,072 square feet of sail area, and a displacement of just 23,500 pounds, Italmas is engineered to be simultaneously light, strong, roomy, and fast. A 53-horsepower Yanmar engine and a 60-gallon fuel tank — uniquely housed inside the bulb keel itself — complete the picture of a boat designed with as much ingenuity below the waterline as above it.
That keel detail is worth dwelling on. The designers at Stephens Waring discovered that Italmas was so light that a remarkable amount of space existed between the lead at the bottom of the bulb keel and the hull above it — enough to engineer a fuel tank directly into the keel structure. The result is what the designers called an “everyman’s water-ballasting option”: top off the fuel tank on a rough day for more windward punch, or run it closer to empty on lighter days for a more nimble, spirited sail. It is exactly the kind of practical, elegant problem-solving that defines the best collaborations between skilled designers and skilled builders.
Italmas was constructed using Van Dam’s cold-molding process — room-temperature cured epoxy adhesive used to laminate many thin layers of wood into the large structural members of the hull and the hull itself. This is a critical distinction, as Ben Van Dam was careful to explain in the Epoxyworks feature. The boats are not built in the traditional way and then simply coated with epoxy after the fact — an approach that would be ineffective and could result in a host of future problems. Instead, epoxy is integrated into the construction from the very beginning, taking full advantage of its adhesive properties alongside the natural strength of wood to create a vessel that is strong, durable, stable, and impervious to the traditional vulnerabilities of wood meeting water. Swelling, cracking, and rot are non-existent in a Van Dam cold-molded build — a fact backed by the company’s lifetime guarantee.
The craftsmen who built Italmas are among the most skilled wooden boatbuilders in the world, shaped in part by Van Dam’s own onsite four-year apprenticeship program. Remarkably, even on a build as technically advanced as Italmas, planes and chisels remain at the top of the tool list. Traditional design styling meets old-world craftsmanship — but with every modern innovation seamlessly woven in. Her custom-engineered wooden spar incorporates advanced materials where appropriate. Her taller rig and lighter overall weight deliver serious sailing performance when conditions allow. Below decks, she is open, airy, and genuinely spacious — designed to ensure that a week at sea never leaves anyone wishing for time alone.
As Epoxyworks concluded, Italmas will be more seaworthy in foreboding weather, a quicker sail to her destination, and easier to captain than most any other boat of comparable appearance and styling. Stephens Waring Yacht Design put forth the dream. Van Dam Custom Boats brought it to life.