Tillotson Pearson built the 39 in the United States for Freedom Yachts beginning that same year. This 39-foot recreational monohull is predominantly fiberglass, with wooden trim. It has a fixed fin keel, a skeg-mounted rudder, wheel steering, and an aft cockpit.
Design and Construction
The Freedom 39 measures 39 feet overall, with a 31-foot waterline and a beam of just under 13 feet. Displacement is near 18,500 pounds, including 5,300 pounds of lead ballast.
Those proportions put her firmly in the cruising category. A ballast-to-displacement ratio of about 29 percent and a capsize screening value of 1.94 describe a boat intended for offshore steadiness rather than all-out speed.
Both the hull and deck are solid fiberglass rather than cored. This construction removes a common failure path found in sandwich-deck boats of the era. The related PH variant used the same hull; the standard 39 is distinguished by its rig.
Rig and Handling
The Freedom 39 stands apart from conventional cruisers with its cat-rigged ketch layout and two free-standing carbon-fiber masts with conventional carbon-fiber booms. Without standing rigging, there’s less rigging complexity on deck and sail handling is simpler. The twin-mast arrangement also divides the boat’s 818 square feet of sail area into manageable sections.
With a sail-area-to-displacement ratio of 18.71 and a hull speed near 7.5 knots, the Freedom 39 is a moderate-displacement cruiser. Its short-handed potential follows directly from the unstayed rig.
A raked stem and slightly reverse transom give the boat a contemporary profile, while the skeg-mounted rudder provides sheltered helm authority.
Accommodations
The Freedom 39 sleeps six. A private double cabin lies aft under the cockpit to starboard, the bow cabin has a double berth, and the main cabin provides two pilot berths. The head is on the starboard side, just aft of the bow cabin, keeping the forward sleeping area separate from the wet room.
At the foot of the companionway steps, the U-shaped galley is set to port and equipped with a three-burner stove and double sinks. Its position gives the cook somewhere to brace against the boat’s motion coming down the ladder.
Because it lies beneath the aft cockpit, the starboard double is tucked into the stern structure rather than open to the main saloon. The arrangement trades some communal flow for the privacy of an owner’s cabin.
Verdict
The Freedom 39 is a thoughtfully conceived cruiser. Its free-standing carbon-fiber rig removes the maintenance and complexity of conventional standing rigging while retaining the sail-plan flexibility of a ketch. Solid fiberglass hull and deck construction avoid the vulnerabilities of cored structures, while the Ron Holland–Gary Hoyt design provides moderate displacement, accommodation for six, and a practical U-shaped galley.
The related PH shares the same hull, but the standard Freedom 39’s cat-ketch rig defines its character.
Pros
- Twin free-standing carbon-fiber masts with conventional booms simplify rigging and sail handling
- Solid fiberglass hull and deck instead of cored sandwich construction
- Six-berth layout with a private aft double cabin and a U-shaped galley to port
Cons
- The unstayed cat-ketch rig limits the conventional sail-plan upgrades and tuning options familiar to many crews
