Good point on EH. I tend to think the first one just didn't count
Although on (yet another) tangent, I've never really understood the utility of "free" actions. It would probably work just fine if an action were an action, and you just got one action during your Perform Action step.
I think the utility is more in player understanding of what it is and preventing confusion than a mechanic utility. Free implies that normally they cost something, which would be the one action you get to take a turn. Also somewhere it might say "a ship may only take one action per turn" or whatever and free actions let them get around that.