Freda on the wind
FREDA
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 and Cookson
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“The Daily Freda” in his and her honor.
Writing an early history of the Club in the April 1899 issue of the Daily Freda, L.B. Chapman (Commodore in 1887 and 1888) paid this tribute to Tracy: Who first achieved the brilliant feat Of getting the Mosquito Fleet In Parlor A of Grimm’s to meet? J. Tracy
Who occupied the speaker’s chair With diffident and rattled air, And organized our yacht club there? J. Tracy
Who swore, till everything was blue, He’d see that institution through To the front rank, and did so too? J. Tracy |
FREDA GOES SOUTH
Labor of LoveAfter 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).
1960s 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.
Joe Tracy and Freda 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.
Freda on the wind