Wind in Their Sails — Death and Resurrection
Wind in Their Sails: Death and Resurrection is my documentary about classic wooden sailboats and the people who care for them. It’s a story grounded deep in my past. In 1954, when I was 8 years old, my family came to San Francisco when my dad attended the American Medical Association’s annual meeting. My mom, being a resourceful woman, thought that taking me to see the tall ship Balclutha would be something I might enjoy. She was right!
Walking up to Balclutha, I was mesmerized by the tall masts and yardarms, and I visualized going up the ratlines to break out the sails. That day still stands out in my mind when I think about how that chance encounter changed my perspective about sailing ships. Little did I know at the time that Balclutha was brand-new to San Francisco Bay, having just been bought by the San Francisco Maritime Museum, headed by Karl Kortum and Alma Spreckels.
Forty years ago, I produced a documentary about racing on San Francisco Bay entitled A Sailor’s Dream. That was the time when IOR was the racing rule for big boats, 12 Meter boats were practicing on the Bay before heading off to Perth; one-design racers like the J/24s and Express 27s had huge and growing fleets. I knew there was a fleet of classic wooden boats competing on the Bay and I knew there’s nothing quite so awe-inspiring as watching those boats slice through the windswept waters of San Francisco Bay.
I featured two classic boats in that documentary. At the time, Terry Klaus had owned Brigadoon for 10 years (she was built in 1925) and had the boat race-ready and crewed with big guys who could muscle the sails up and down. I got onto the boat for the 1985 Master Mariners Race, carrying my big, heavy video camera and its separate recorder attached with a 12-foot umbilical cord. I managed to stay out of the way while getting some really good action shots. Terry and I have been friends ever since.
The second boat was Freda. She was built in Tiburon in 1885. She’d ended up abandoned in the Alameda Estuary’s mud. Harold Sommer found her there and brought her back to life. His son, Ross, lived on the boat for a while. As Wander Bird took more of Harold’s time and energy, he sold Freda to Jerry and Diane Brenden. They adored Freda. They took great pride in the fact that she was 100 years old and she looked like it.
