Freda Gets Her Whiskey Plank

One-hundred and twenty-five years after she was first launched on the shores of Belvedere Cove, the 32-ft gaff sloop Freda marked a momentous occasion on Saturday afternoon when she received her shutter plank. The roughly eight-foot-long plank finished off the hull-planking phase of the decade-long restoration of the West Coast’s oldest sailing yacht by the Arques School, the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center, the Master Mariners Benevolent Association, local preservationists and donors.

About 100 people showed up to watch what’s also known as the "whiskey plank" get a splash of deep-gold firewater before being fastened in place by graduates and students of the Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding, which shares the Spaulding Center space. A short presentation started things off with a history of the yacht and a talk by Arques School Director Bob Darr who commented that, "Freda not only has a soul, but a soul with good karma." Darr explained that when she arrived at Spaulding’s, Freda‘s sheer had flattened out and the hull was heavily distorted. From our perspective, that was hard to visualize when seeing the fully-planked hull at this point in its museum-quality restoration.

After the fastening of the plank, guests were treated to barbequed oysters and Anchor Steam beer — the latter courtesy of that brewery’s founder and Spaulding Center client and supporter Fritz Maytag, who also donated the ceremonial whiskey which the crowd got to share in. Music was provided by the "Waterfront Pickers" which included Tom List, who originally nursed a near-dead Freda from San Rafael to Spaulding’s back in ’99. The message of the day was that the project still needs more funding, but as Darr said: "We’ll get it somehow."