Salty Reflections: A Good Old Yacht Harbor
Yacht harbors have definite personalities. Some are quite proper and yachty, and some are sterile, securely locked at each corner. Some are warm and friendly and others funky. A marina’s personality, like any neighborhood’s, will change to reflect the times and the current cast of characters who occupy it. Some are working class, a “Good Old Yacht Harbor” — non-pretentious marinas occupied by modest folks who love their modest boats and enjoy their boating friends. You won’t typically find megayachts, gold-platers or blue blazers here; paint-stained T-shirts, plaid shirts, overalls, shorts and deck shoes are the uniform of the day for most folks.
Alameda Yacht Harbor (now Fortman Marina), as it was known in the ’60s and ’70s, was a great Good Old Yacht Harbor. Situated on San Francisco Bay’s Oakland Estuary, it was a rich environment of old salts, character-filled wooden boats, and many “new technology” fiberglass boats promoted as maintenance-free. (Yes, see those ads in late-’70s issues of Latitude 38.) The surrounding industrial sites and shipping piers enhanced its non-yachty personality.
or sail, wooden boats were the heart of the marina.
The harbor began in the 1890s as the berthing basin for Alaska Packers’ Association’s square-riggers unloading Alaskan canned salmon. In the 1930s, the basin began evolving into a yacht harbor, complete with a six-ton marine railway for quick haulouts/bottom jobs. The railway was free to use, but had a five-day time limit. By the ’70s, the railway was all that remained of Alameda Boatworks, which had produced many beautiful wooden yachts through the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s.
By the early ’70s, the harbor was a colorful neighborhood of sailors, class boats and liveaboards. In 1972, I purchased a Nordic Folkboat built in Denmark in the 1940s. Naturally, I was placed among 12 neighbors on Folkboat Row, also known as “Middle Finger Cruising Club,” so named not for the well-known gesture, but because this row of slips was in the middle of the marina, and the Folkboat owners were a laid-back, chummy bunch.
I loved this article. It brought back many great memories. I crewed on a Bear Boat out of Alameda Yacht Harbor in the mid ’60’s. Then, my dad and I had our first Santana 22 at Alameda Yacht Harbor in the late ’60’s. I think the slip rent was under $100 a month.
The Bear Boats raced almost every weekend. We started the weekend after Opening Day with the Vallejo Race. Then the Hearst Regatta with starts off the St. Francis Yacht Club. And on through July. There was a summer break so families could spend some time daysailing and cruising up the river. Then, in late August, racing would resume and run until October.
What fun times.