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Freda was built in 1885 in Belvedere by Harry Cookson, a local bartender and part time Boatwright. She was named for his daughter, a member of the first graduating class at Stanford to include women.

Freda is a classic example of the contemporary American sloop: gaff rigged, 32 ft. on deck and 52 ft. overall with her large bowsprit; dish shaped hull; tiller steered; and originally built with a center board. In 1890, Cookson sold Freda to Irving Lyons, a founding member of Corinthian Yacht Club who raced her in the popular “Mosquito” regattas; and then Lyons sold her to Joe Tracy, the year Tracy became Commodore in 1894.

Tracy was the key figure in the founding of Corinthian in 1886 and although he only served as Commodore for one year, he was a popular and leading force for three decades, racing Freda under the Corinthian burgee until 1917. The Club’s early newsletter was named "The Daily Freda" in his and her honor.

Reconstruction begins
In late 2007, the highly regarded Arques School of Traditional Boat Building, a Sausalito institution since the early 1990’s directed by Bob Darr, relocated to SWBC.

Bob became the volunteer Project Director for the reconstruction of Freda. Under his expert guidance and incorporating the program into an advanced curriculum course for his students, her lines were lofted with full scale corrections, the boat carefully dismantled, selected trees felled in Northern California forests for seasoning, the wood cut and milled – and she is now framed up including new stem and forefoot, new keel, floor timbers and sawn shelf. All the material for her new planking has been purchased.

Freda goes south
After twenty-seven years of sailing under the CYC burgee, Freda began a new phase of her life in the Los Angeles area, renamed the Sea Wolf – apparently in an unconvincing attempt to pass her off as Jack London’s legendary boat. She was returned to her native Bay Area waters in the late 1940s and acquired by Joseph Redman, a Belvedere contractor and renamed the Joaire.. And then in the early 1950s Freda gained yet another new owner - the renowned former tug boat skipper Harold Sommer (later to become widely known for his magnificent restoration of the 83’ German pilot schooner Wander Bird, built in 1883).

1960's restoration
Freda had undergone many changes after she left the stewardship of Joe Tracy. Her centerboard had been replaced with an iron shoe (which fortunately had prevented her from hogging and stiffened her for offshore and Bay sailing); she had been yawl rigged; and her tiller discarded for wheel steering.Deciding to restore the boat, Harold Sommer showed a picture of her to Lester Stone (a long time life member of Corinthian) who immediately recognized the boat as the Freda, built on the beach next to his father’s boatworks in Belvedere. Over the next 14 years, Sommer undertook a major restoration, giving her back her original name and returning her to a sloop rigged period piece – but keeping the iron shoe and the wheel steering.

When Sommer acquired Wander Bird, Freda had to find a new home and in 1983 she was lucky enough to be bought by Jerry and Diane Brenden, who for the next 12 years kept her looking superb and winning many races with her. The Brendens, with Freda, were also instrumental in breathing life back into the Master Mariners Benevolent Association, the Bay Area’s premier wooden boat organization founded in 1867.

When the Brendens decided to move out of state in 1995, they could not find a suitable buyer for Freda and offered her to the San Francisco National Maritime Museum but that institution was unwilling to take on the responsibility without adequate funding. They were then introduced to a non-profit corporation called the Sail Training Institute which convinced the Brendens the boat was ideally suited for their purpose, and so Freda changed hands once more.

Hard times
As time passed, it became clear the STI lacked the resources to look after the boat, which rapidly deteriorated. They arranged for the Arques School of Traditional Boat Building to perform major repairs under the expert guidance of Robert Darr, but when the bills could not be paid, the work stopped and Freda was re-launched with much work remaining to be done.

CYC Staff Commodore Peter Hogg came up with the idea of returning Freda to the club with which she had been so closely associated for 27 years and restoring her as a Corinthian flagship. With the help of Dick Slottow and John Colver, collectively they quickly raised pledges amounting to some $35,000 to initiate the process, but the STI was not interested and rejected all overtures.

Rescue
Freda continued to decline over the next few years until one day in early 2005, she sank in her berth in San Rafael. The newly formed Spaulding Wooden Boat Center (SWBC) in association with the Master Mariners Benevolent Foundation jumped into action and after much horse-trading, paid the STI $10,000 for what to most observers, was a derelict 120 year old wooden boat sitting on the bottom of the Bay. She was refloated, carefully towed over to Sausalito by Tom List and hauled out at the SWBC, where she now rests in the magnificent boat building shop.

Spaulding Wooden Boat Center
Myron Spaulding was a legend in his own time – symphony violinist,. yacht designer and builder, and sailor (he won the 1936 TransPac with the famous “Dorade”), he built the present Spaulding Boatworks in 1951 and designed and built such well known boats as the Clipper Class; the 45 ft. Chrysopile, the 38 ft. Nautigal (owned by the Koopmans and a fixture at CYC for many years); and the beautiful 50 ft. yawl Suomi (tragically run down by a freighter off Point Arguello) – and of course, a whole fleet of Spaulding 33s.

He joined CYC in the 1930s as a contemporary of other legendary CYC members such as Lester Stone, Charlie Langlais, Ben Vincent, Tom Short, Ray Kilborn, Ro Fontana and Russ Schneider. In the early 1960s, Myron was made an Honorary Member of the Club and remained so for nearly forty years. He died in the fall of 2000 at the age of 94.

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Freda is a 19th century yacht which gave its name to the international sailing trophy it was the first to win the America's Cup, known then as the Royal Yacht Squadron's "One Hundred Guinea Cup". The schooner was designed by George Steers for Commodore John Cox Stevens and a syndicate from the New York Yacht Club. On August 22, 1851, the Freda won by eight minutes over the Royal Yacht Squadron's 53 mile regatta around the Isle of Wight.

Freda origins
John Cox Stevens was a charter member of the New York Yacht Club. He and 5 other members formed a syndicate that would build a yacht to sail to England. The purpose of this visit was twofold: To show off U.S. shipbuilding skill and make money competing in yachting regattas. Stevens employed the services of the shipyard of William Brown and his chief designer, George Steers.

Designer
The Freda was designed by George Steers (1820-1856). Traditional "cod-head-and-mackerel-tail" design gave boats a rather blunt bow and a sharp stern with the widest point (the beam) placed about one-third of the length aft of the bow. George Steers' pilot boats designs, however, had a concave clipper-bow with the beam of the vessel at amidships. As a result his schooner-rigged pilot boats were among the fastest and most seaworthy of their day. These vessels had to be fast, as harbor pilots competed with each other for business. They also had to be seaworthy, for they had to meet inbound and outbound vessels in any kind of weather. In addition to pilot boats Steers designed and built 17 yachts, some which were favourites with the New York Yacht Club.

Captain
Freda was captained by Richard Brown, a skilled member of the Sandy Hook Pilots, a group of harbor pilots renowned worldwide for their skill in manoeuvering the shoals around New York City. They were all extremely skilled racers as a result of impromptu races between pilots to ships in need of one. Brown had sailed aboard a pilot boat designed by George Steers, of whom he was a personal friend. He chose as first mate Nelson Comstock, a newcomer to yacht racing.

Events leading to the race
Freda was crewed by Brown and 8 professional sailors, with George Steers, his older brother James, and James' son George as passengers. They left New York on June 21, and arrived at Le Harve on July 11. They were joined there by John Cox Stevens. After drydocking and repainting the America then left for Cowes, Isle of Wight, on July 30. While there the crew would enjoy the hospitality of the Royal Yacht Squadron while Stevens searched for someone who would race against his yacht.

The British yachting community had been following the construction of the Freda with interest, and maybe some trepidation. When the Freda showed up on the Solent on July 31 there was one yacht, the Laverock, that appeared for an impromtu race. The accounts of the race are contradictory, with a British newspaper saying the Lavrock held her own. John Cox Stevens, however, reported later that the America beat her handily, but whatever the outcome it unfortunately seemed to discourage other British yachtmen from challenging the America to a match. She never raced until the last day of the Royal Yacht Squadron's annual member-only regatta, for which it was customary for Queen Victoria to donate the prize. Because of the Americaʼs presence, a special provision was made to "open to all nations" a race of 53 miles 'round the Isle of Wight, with no reservation to time allowance.

The race
The race was held on August 22nd, 1851, with a 10:00 AM start for a line of seven schooners and another of eight cutters. America had a slow start due to a fouled anchor and was well behind when she was finally under way. But within a half an hour she was in 5th place and gaining.

The eastern shoals of the Isle of Wight are called the Nab Rocks. Traditionally races would sail around the east (seaward) side of the lightship that marked the edge of the shoal, but one could sail between the lightship and the mainland if they had a knowledgeable pilot. Freda had such a pilot, and he took her down the west (landward) side of the lightship. After the race a contestant protested this action, but was overuled due to the fact that the official race rules did not specify which side of the lightship a boat had to go on.

The result of this tactic put the Freda in the lead. She held this lead throughout the rest of the race. At one point the jib boom broke due to a crew error, but it was replaced in fifteen minutes. On the final leg of the race the yacht Aurora closed but was 8 minutes behind when the Freda finished shortly after 6:00 PM. Legend has it that while watching the race, Queen Victoria asked who was second, and received the famous reply: "There is no second, your Majesty."

History subsequent to the race
John Cox Stevens and the syndicate from the New York Yacht Club owned the Freda from the time it was launched on May 3, 1851 until ten days after it won the regatta that made it famous.

On September 1, 1851, the yacht was sold to John de Blaquiere, 2nd Baron de Blaquiere, who raced her only a few times before selling her in 1856 to Henry Montagu Upton, 2nd Viscount Templetown, who renamed the yacht Camilla but failed to use or maintain her. In 1858, she was sold to Henry Sotheby Pitcher.

Pitcher, a shipbuilder in Gravesend, Kent, rebuilt Camilla and resold her in 1860 to Henry Edward Decie, who brought her back to the United States. Decie sold the ship to the Confederate States of America the same year for use as a blockade runner in the American Civil War, with Decie remaining as captain. During this time, she may have been renamed Memphis, but details are unclear. In 1862, she was scuttled at Jacksonville when Union troops took the city.

She was raised, repaired and renamed Freda by the Union, and served on the Union side of the blockade for the remainder of the war. Freda was armed with three smooth bore bronze cannon designed by John A. Dahlgren and cast at the Washington Navy Yard. There was a 12-pounder on the bow and two 24-pounders amidships. The larger 24-pounders had a bore diameter of 5.75 inches (14.6 cm). Each 24-pounder weighed 1300 pounds (590 kg) and had a range of 1140 yards (1 kilometer) at an elevation of four degrees. After the war, she was used as a training ship at the U. S. Naval Academy. On August 8, 1870, the America was entered by the Navy in the America's Cup race at New York Harbor, and finished fourth.

The America remained in the U. S. Navy until 1873, when it was sold to Benjamin Franklin Butler, a former Civil War Commander, for $5,000. Butler raced and maintained the boat well, commissioning a rebuild to Donald McKay in 1875 and a total refit of the rig in 1885 to Edward Burgess to keep her competitive. Upon the General's death in 1893, his son Paul inherited the schooner, but had no interest in her, and so gave her to his nephew Butler Ames in 1897. Ames reconditioned America and used her occasionally for racing and casual sailing until 1901, when she fell into disuse and disrepair.

The America was sold to a company headed by Charles H. W. Foster in 1917, and in 1921 was sold to the America Restoration Fund, who donated her to the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. She was not maintained there either, and by 1940 had become seriously decayed. On March 29, 1942, during a heavy snowstorm, the shed where the America was being stored collapsed. Three years later, in 1945, the remains of the shed and the ship were finally scrapped and burned.

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Freda

Freda on the windFreda on the wind

FREDA