JADA is a wooden classic yacht built in 1938 in Stockton, California. She is 82 feet at the waterline, with a beam designed for the sheltered California delta waters of her birth, and a rig suited to the open Pacific she has sailed for the last two decades. Her age is part of her character. She has been on the water longer than most of the people who sail aboard her were alive.
JADA was built in 1938 in Stockton, California, during the era of classic American yacht construction. Her design reflects the era's emphasis on length, beam, and sea-keeping ability over speed — a vessel meant to cover distance comfortably, not to race. Her original teak decks, now more than eight decades old, have been maintained and renewed through successive ownerships.
At some point in her history, JADA was owned by Marlon Brando. The exact period of Brando's ownership is part of the vessel's oral history; what is certain is that she made the passage to Hawaii under his ownership, and it is in that era that the vessel's connection to the Pacific deepened. The vessel spent time in Hawaiian waters before eventually returning to California.
JADA arrived in San Diego approximately twenty years ago when Carole Noska acquired her and established the charter operation at Harbor Island. The decision to base the vessel in San Diego was partly practical — the harbor, the climate, the access to open Pacific water within an hour — and partly inevitable: a wooden classic yacht belonging to sheltered water and open ocean, and San Diego offers both.
JADA is USCG licensed for 34 souls and holds the California Cremated Remains Disposer License that authorizes ash scattering at sea. She is the vessel aboard which hundreds of families have committed their loved ones to the Pacific. Her age and character are part of what she offers. There is nothing generic about conducting a ceremony aboard a vessel that has been on the water since 1938.