FREYJA SAGA
SAIL AWAY -TIM OLSON
By March of 1969, Lorelie and I had a 2 year-old son and owned a three bedroom home on a hill. We wre both teachers and active in church, so we had a busy family and social life. After the previous fishing season, I thought my years in Alaska were over.
I missed being on a boat. so in April I walked the docks in nearby Edmonds Marina. I found a no-name 25 foot wooden sloop with a for sale sign and the phone number of a ship broker.
I had never sailed, and neither had Lorelie, but I called the broker anyway for information: $2250.00, two bunks, a marine head, an alcohol stove, not quite 4 feet of head room, a 2 cylinder inboard engine, 2 sails. Found out the boat was launched in Seattle in 1938 the same year I was launched in Minneapolis. A sure sign it was meant to be. Why not?
So we bought the boat, named her Skookum, and a friend taught us how to raise the sails and find the breeze. Glorious! The silence! The lift of the hull when the breeze freshened! Ohhhhhhh!
At first we were a bit anxious about bringing our son Paul and Tricia, our Golden Retriever, with us. Soon, however, they joined us and relished the joy of sailing as much as we did. Ah yes, we were a jolly foursome.
Weekend afternoons finding the wind were much too wonderful not to be shared with friends. Like us, most of our friends had never sailed, and responded to our invitation, “We’d love to go sailing.” Some weren’t so sure when a stiff wind had Skookum heeled over and the running sea lapping over the railing. “Are we all right?” Indeed we were! Thrilling!
In a few years, Skookum would become Freyja and Freyja would venture to the San Juans, and the Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound in Canada. Ah, that is a story for another post.
Enjoy these early pictures of Freyja and the friends who joined us on when she was Skookum.
