[ { "id": "yankee", "name": "Yankee", "sort": "Yankee", "sub": "Gaff schooner, 52 ft — W. F. Stone, 1905; launched 18 April 1906", "life": "1906 – present", "place": "San Francisco Bay", "start": 1906, "regions": [ "sf-bay" ], "eras": [ "gilded-age", "between-wars", "war-plywood", "postwar", "fiberglass", "revival" ], "summary": "Launched on the morning of the Great Earthquake, still sailing, still winning. One hundred and twenty years on San Francisco Bay under three owners, and the boat around which the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation exists.", "essay": [ "W. F. Stone drew her in 1905 and built her at the yard near the Presidio — the Harbor View site the firm occupied from 1899 to 1911. She was to launch on 18 April 1906. That morning the earthquake shook her out of her building cradle, and she went into the water some weeks later instead. Very few boats can date their own beginning against a civic catastrophe.", "She was a gaff sloop first. Captain Charles Miller converted her to the gaff schooner rig she still carries during the 1910s — a change of the kind that would now be argued about for years, and which in her case simply became what she is.", "Three owners in a hundred and twenty years: David Abecassis from 1906, Captain Miller from 1907 to about 1925, and the Ford family from 1925 to the present, latterly under nonprofit stewardship. That continuity is the reason so much of her record survives.", "The racing record runs the whole length of it. She won a race before 1906 was out. She won the first Farallones Race in 1907. She took her division at the Panama-Pacific Exposition regatta in 1915. She has been flagship of the St. Francis Yacht Club seven times. And in 2015 — in her second century — she was Master Mariners champion.", "In 1942 and 1943 she was painted grey and patrolled outside the Golden Gate for the Navy. She appeared in a King Vidor silent film in 1923 and on screen again in 1962 with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. She is now in Sausalito, midway through a ten-phase structural refit funded one phase at a time.", "For this atlas she is a useful object lesson. She is a Bay boat, designed and built by a Bay yard, sailed on the Bay for her whole life, and still racing against boats drawn by men who had not been born when she was launched. That is the thing the Master Mariners fleet exists to demonstrate, and Yankee demonstrates it better than any other single hull." ], "facts": [ [ "Designer", "W. F. Stone, 1905" ], [ "Builder", "Stone Boat Yard, near the Presidio, San Francisco" ], [ "Launched", "18 April 1906 — the morning of the earthquake shook her from her cradle; she went in some weeks later" ], [ "Rig", "Gaff sloop originally; converted to gaff schooner by Captain Charles Miller in the 1910s" ], [ "LOA", "52 ft" ], [ "Owners", "David Abecassis 1906–07; Captain Charles Miller 1907–c. 1925; the Ford family 1925–present, now under nonprofit stewardship" ], [ "Racing", "First race won before the end of 1906; inaugural Farallones Race 1907; division win at the Panama-Pacific Exposition regatta 1915; Master Mariners champion 2015; St. Francis Yacht Club flagship seven times" ], [ "War service", "1942–43, painted grey, US Navy patrol outside the Golden Gate" ], [ "Screen", "A King Vidor silent film, 1923; on screen again in 1962 with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick" ], [ "Now", "Under structural refit in Sausalito, 2025–26, by the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation — ten phases, funded one at a time" ] ], "works": [], "links": { "designers": [ "stone-frank" ], "builders": [ "stone-boat-yard" ], "classes": [], "associations": [ "ggwbf", "master-mariners", "stfyc" ] }, "flags": [ "The Foundation names the yard as 'the Stone Boat Yard near the Presidio'; the firm was trading at Harbor View as Stone & Van Bergen in 1905 per Naval Marine Archive. Same place and people; the trading name is unresolved.", "The 1962 film is not named in the source consulted and is not asserted here." ], "sources": [ { "t": "History — Yankee 1906, Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation", "u": "https://yankee2026.org/history.html" }, { "t": "Yankee — 1906 · Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation", "u": "https://yankee2026.org/" }, { "t": "W. F. Stone & Sons — Naval Marine Archive", "u": "https://navalmarinearchive.com/sbh/shipyards/small/stone.html" } ] }, { "id": "northern-light", "name": "Northern Light", "sort": "Northern Light", "sub": "Auxiliary schooner, 140 ft — Henry C. Grebe, 1927; built at Stone Boat Yard, Oakland", "life": "1927 –", "place": "Oakland, California", "start": 1927, "regions": [ "sf-bay" ], "eras": [ "between-wars" ], "summary": "The largest boat in this atlas's Bay chapter: an ice-strengthened schooner built in under a year at Oakland for an Arctic collecting expedition, and — until this week — a boat with a famous builder and no known designer.", "essay": [ "John Borden, a Chicago businessman, wanted a vessel that could take a Field Museum collecting expedition into Arctic ice and bring it home. He had commissioned Adventuress from Bowdoin Crowninshield fourteen years earlier for much the same purpose; this time he went to Henry C. Grebe, a Chicago naval architect who had run a subchaser yard for the Navy in the First World War.", "The boat was built three thousand miles from Grebe's office, at W. F. Stone & Son on the Oakland Estuary. Accounts say forty-six men worked two ten-hour shifts and finished her in under a year — 140 feet of ice-strengthened auxiliary schooner. Latitude 38 has called her the largest schooner ever built as a sailing yacht on the West Coast.", "She matters here for what she demonstrates. A Bay yard best known for Bird boats and minesweepers could, when asked, build at the top of the trade — and the Bay's industrial capacity was serious enough that a Chicago owner with an Arctic problem sent the work west." ], "facts": [ [ "Designer", "Henry C. Grebe, Chicago" ], [ "Builder", "W. F. Stone & Son, Oakland" ], [ "Length", "140 ft" ], [ "For", "John Borden's Field Museum Alaska-Arctic Expedition of 1927" ], [ "Construction", "Reportedly 46 men on two ten-hour shifts, completed in under a year" ] ], "works": [], "links": { "designers": [ "grebe-henry", "crowninshield-bowdoin" ], "builders": [ "stone-boat-yard" ], "classes": [], "associations": [ "master-mariners" ] }, "flags": [ "The 'largest schooner built as a sailing yacht on the West Coast' claim and the 46-men detail both trace to a single lineage — Latitude 38's reporting, drawing on a 1992 WoodenBoat article. An earlier version of the same claim was broader still.", "Her later history has not been researched here." ], "sources": [ { "t": "Revisiting the 1927 Schooner Northern Light — Latitude 38", "u": "https://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/revisiting-the-1927-schooner-northern-light/" }, { "t": "The Borden-Field Museum Alaska-Arctic Expedition of 1927 — Wikipedia", "u": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borden-Field_Museum_Alaska-Arctic_Expedition_of_1927" }, { "t": "Henry C. Grebe — Chicago Maritime Museum", "u": "https://www.chicagomaritimemuseum.org/online-stories/henry-c-grebe" } ] }, { "id": "zaca", "name": "Zaca", "sort": "Zaca", "sub": "Schooner — Nunes Brothers, Sausalito, 1929", "life": "1929 –", "place": "Sausalito, California", "start": 1929, "regions": [ "sf-bay" ], "eras": [ "between-wars", "postwar", "revival" ], "summary": "Built at Sausalito for a San Francisco banker on a low bid of $350,000, later owned by Errol Flynn, and restored in Brittany in the 1990s. The most glamorous boat the Nunes brothers ever built, and they built the Bear in the same yard at the same time.", "facts": [ [ "Builder", "Nunes Brothers Boat & Ways Co., Sausalito" ], [ "For", "Templeton Crocker, on a low bid of $350,000" ], [ "Later", "Bought by Errol Flynn in 1946; he held her until his death in 1959" ], [ "Restoration", "In Brittany in the 1990s" ] ], "works": [], "links": { "designers": [ "nunes-ernest" ], "builders": [ "nunes-brothers" ], "classes": [], "associations": [] }, "flags": [ "Length is given as both 118 and 127 feet, and her launch as both 1929 and 1930." ], "sources": [ { "t": "Zaca — Islapedia", "u": "https://www.islapedia.com/index.php?title=Zaca" }, { "t": "Zaca and Sausalito — Sausalito Historical Society", "u": "https://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com/2016-columns/2016/2/27/zaca-and-sausalito" } ] }, { "id": "adventuress", "name": "Adventuress", "sort": "Adventuress", "sub": "Gaff schooner — B. B. Crowninshield, 1913; Rice Brothers, East Boothbay", "life": "1913 – present", "place": "San Francisco, then Puget Sound", "start": 1913, "regions": [ "sf-bay", "pnw", "new-england" ], "eras": [ "gilded-age", "between-wars", "postwar", "revival" ], "summary": "Built in Maine for the Arctic, worked for thirty-five years as a San Francisco bar pilot schooner, and has spent the last seventy teaching young people to sail on Puget Sound. A National Historic Landmark, and still sailing.", "essay": [ "Crowninshield drew her for John Borden, who wanted a boat for an Arctic expedition. That plan failed, and she was sold instead to the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association — which used her for about thirty-five years, into the early 1970s, running pilots out to ships standing off the Farallon Islands. It is hard to imagine harder service for a gaff schooner: the bar, the Gate, and the Potato Patch, in all weathers, all year.", "She moved to Puget Sound about 1952 for youth sail training under Youth Adventure, Inc., and is now operated by Sound Experience out of Port Townsend. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989 and is one of only two NHL sailing vessels still active on the West Coast.", "She belongs in this atlas twice over — as a Bay working vessel that most Bay histories omit because she was never a yacht, and as the link between three of its regions: designed in Boston, built in Maine, worked in San Francisco, preserved in Washington." ], "facts": [ [ "Designer", "Bowdoin B. Crowninshield" ], [ "Builder", "Rice Brothers, East Boothbay, Maine" ], [ "Commissioned by", "John Borden, for an Arctic expedition that did not proceed" ], [ "Bay service", "San Francisco Bar Pilots Association, about 35 years to the early 1970s" ], [ "Now", "Sound Experience, Port Townsend; National Historic Landmark, 1989" ] ], "works": [], "links": { "designers": [ "crowninshield-bowdoin" ], "builders": [ "rice-brothers" ], "classes": [], "associations": [ "nwswb", "master-mariners" ] }, "flags": [ "Length is given as 133 ft by one source and 85 ft by another — probably sparred against hull length, not reconciled here." ], "sources": [ { "t": "Adventuress (schooner) — Wikipedia", "u": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventuress_(schooner)" }, { "t": "Bowdoin B. Crowninshield — Classic Sailboats", "u": "https://classicsailboats.org/bowdoin-b-crowninshield-adventuress/" } ] }, { "id": "freda", "name": "Freda", "sort": "Freda", "sub": "Gaff sloop — Harry Cookson, Belvedere, 1885", "life": "1885 – present", "place": "Belvedere and Sausalito, California", "start": 1885, "regions": [ "sf-bay" ], "eras": [ "working-sail", "gilded-age", "between-wars", "postwar", "revival" ], "summary": "Built by a Belvedere saloon keeper for his daughter in 1885, and still sailing — by widespread account the oldest active private sailing yacht on the West Coast.", "essay": [ "Harry Cookson kept a saloon in Belvedere and built boats part-time. In 1885 he built one on Beach Road, in the cove near the W. S. Stone yard, and named her after his daughter. She was rock-elm framed and Douglas fir planked, dish-shaped, with a centreboard and a tiller, and she has been altered a good deal since — twin iron shoes, wheel steering, and for a period a yawl rig.", "That she survives at all is the work of two restorations. Harold Sommer, who skippered the Bay's last wooden tug, rebuilt her in the 1950s, after which she raced with the Master Mariners. Half a century later the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding spent fifteen years on her, and she was relaunched from the Spaulding Marine Center in 2014.", "She is the atlas's demonstration case. Everything else here — the yards, the classes, the drawings in archives — exists to produce and preserve objects like this one, and almost none of them last 140 years." ], "facts": [ [ "Builder", "Harry Cookson, Belvedere saloon keeper and part-time boatwright" ], [ "Where", "Beach Road, Belvedere Cove, near the W. S. Stone yard" ], [ "Named for", "Cookson's daughter" ], [ "Construction", "Rock elm frames, Douglas fir planking, dish-shaped hull, centreboard, tiller" ], [ "Restorations", "Harold Sommer in the 1950s; a fifteen-year rebuild by the Arques School, relaunched from Spaulding Marine Center in 2014" ] ], "works": [], "links": { "designers": [ "cookson-harry" ], "builders": [ "spaulding-boatworks", "arques", "stone-boat-yard" ], "classes": [], "associations": [ "spaulding-marine-center", "master-mariners" ] }, "flags": [ "Whether Cookson designed her as well as building her is not established.", "The claim that she is the oldest active private sailing yacht on the West Coast is widely repeated but was never independently adjudicated against rival claimants; every account appears to trace to Spaulding and Arques material." ], "sources": [ { "t": "Freda — Spaulding Marine Center", "u": "https://www.spauldingcenter.org/freda" }, { "t": "Freda's Story — Spaulding Wooden Boat Center", "u": "https://spauldingwoodenboatcenter.wordpress.com/restoration/freda/fredas-story/" } ] } ]