Before yachting, there was cargo. San Francisco Bay ran on scow schooners, feluccas, shrimp junks and pilot boats, and the men who built them — Dirks, Turner, the first Stone — were shipwrights serving commerce, not sport. The Bay's first recorded races were workboat races.
What happened
- 1853 — William Stone establishes a yard at Hunters Point
- 1867 — First Master Mariners regatta: coastal schooners and scows
- 1869 — San Francisco Yacht Club founded, first west of the Mississippi
- 1883 — Matthew Turner moves his yard to Benicia
- 1885 — Freda launched; still afloat and racing
Where
Designers
Colin Archer
Naval architect and builder — Larvik, Norway
Edward Burgess
Naval architect — Boston
Harry Cookson
Saloon keeper and part-time boatwright — Belvedere
Thomas F. McManus
Naval architect — Boston
A. Cary Smith
Naval architect and marine painter — New York
W. Frank Stone
Designer and yard principal — San Francisco Bay
George Lennox Watson
Naval architect — Glasgow
Builders & Yards
Alexander Robertson & Sons
Sandbank, Argyll
Anderson & Cristofani
900 Innes Avenue, India Basin, Hunters Point
Camper and Nicholsons
Gosport, Hampshire
Dickie Brothers / John W. Dickie & Son
Potrero Point, then Alameda
Hodgdon Yachts
East Boothbay, Maine
Kneass Boat Works
Mission Street, Pier 70 and 3rd Street, San Francisco
George F. Lawley & Son
Scituate, South Boston, then Neponset
Menotti Pasquinucci
Turney Street, Sausalito
Smith and Rhuland
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
W. F. Stone & Son / Stone Boat Yard
Hunters Point → Tiburon → Harbor View → Oakland → Alameda
Matthew Turner
Shipbuilder — Hunters Point, then Benicia
Union Iron Works / Bethlehem San Francisco
Potrero Point, San Francisco
Classes & Types
The Cape Cod Catboat
New England vernacular, revived by Fenwick Williams
The Colin Archer Type
Double-ended, heavy-displacement, seagoing
The Gloucester Fishing Schooner
New England, 19th century to the 1930s
Monterey Clipper & the San Francisco Felucca
Italian-American fishing craft, 1860s – 1950s
Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter
British working sail, 1795 – 1922
San Francisco Bay Scow Schooner
The Bay's cargo craft, c. 1850 – 1930s
Associations & Institutions
Master Mariners Benevolent Association
San Francisco Bay — racing since 1867
San Francisco Yacht Club
Belvedere Cove, Tiburon
Vessels
Freda
Gaff sloop — Harry Cookson, Belvedere, 1885
The Gilded Age & the Big Class →
Wooden Boat Atlas v3.0 · built 30 July 2026 · a project of the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation · licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · open data · corrections