Walking around Dana Point Harbor last weekend, I stumbled upon Barry and Sue Senescu, whose boat, the Yippee Kai Yay, caught my eye. It had a champagne bottle hanging over its bow and flag.

After taking a few photos, I decided to e-mail Sue to see what more I could find out about the boat.

She wrote back that the boat recently came home from the 800-mile race from Newport Beach to Cabo San Lucas.

Yippee is a Class 40-foot designed for around-the-world or transoceanic racing, single-handed or fully crewed.

"Most of the Class 40s hail from Europe," she said. "So, when they came across from France to Boston, my husband, Barry, and I went to go check them out with the intention of possibly building one for Transpacific."

"We have six Tranpacs between us  [Los Angeles to Hawaii], and we like to surf on the long-distance races. Our boat speed reaches 20 knots."

She said they chose the name because they were the second Class 40 commissioned on the West Coast of North America—thus the Western name and a slightly implied connection to Bruce Willis’ quote in Die Hard.

The boat was designed by naval architect Jim Antrim of El Sobrante in the San Francisco Bay Area and built by Vince Valdes and crew at Columbia Yachts in Santa Ana.

"After the boat arrived back home from Cabo, we cleaned it thoroughly from top of the mast to the bottom of the bilges and the keel. When you think about it, although it was only an 800-mile race, the boat has been away for two months, and 2,000 miles at sea, with a total of 12 people living aboard on different legs during that time."

She added that when I saw the boat it was opening day for the Dana Point Yacht Club, their 59th, so they decided to dress the ship and enter the parade.

"We started up in 1953 before the harbor was developed 40 years ago. So boat owners would either anchor or launch off the beach and we had a launch area and little clubhouse on the bluff above."