“Sausalito Waterfront Royalty” Remember Sailboat Nirvana
Marina O’Neil, co-owner of Sausalito charter schooner Freda B, coined a wonderful term for a group of sailors who congregated in Sausalito during the 1970s and 1980s, and made the waterfront a veritable “Camelot for sailors.” Marina calls this eclectic group “Sausalito Waterfront Royalty.” The vessels these folks sailed, restored, rebuilt — and sometimes even built themselves — were legendary. Among them the pilot schooner Wander Bird [Elbe No. 5], restored by Harold Sommer; the schooner Spike Africa, built by Bob Sloane; Sterling Hayden’s Wanderer; David Crosby’s Mayan; the schooner Fair Sarae [Eros]; and dozens of other sailboats, large and small, together comprised an enviable collection of boats and characters on the Sausalito waterfront.
One of the central figures in that waterfront renaissance was young surfer, shipwright and sailor Billy Martinelli, who helped restore Wander Bird, as well as David Crosby’s schooner Mayan and many other boats on the waterfront. He then went on to build his own charter schooner, Gas Light.
So when Martinelli turned 80, it was only natural that many of the original “Royalty” would show up to celebrate at a gathering hosted by Sausalito’s Mary Crowley, the “Queen” of the Sausalito Waterfront Royalty.
Many of Martinelli’s longtime sailor friends turned up for the event last Saturday, August 21. It was a real “who’s who” of the old waterfront, including Jim Linderman Sr. and Jr., Ross Sommer, mechanic and sailor Tom List, captain Paul Dines, shipwright Jeremy Fischer-Smith, Alice Merrill and dozens of others. For a few hours, it was almost like stepping back into another era of the Sausalito waterfront.
The party guests were entertained with some amazing original film footage that Martinelli had shot of Wander Bird racing Pride of Baltimore across San Francisco Bay toward Sausalito in 1983, just a few years before the Pride was knocked down and foundered off Puerto Rico in 1986. He also had footage of the schooner Spike Africa racing to Hawaii, blasting down trade-wind seas.
Watching those old reels, with so many of the people who had actually lived those days, made it a pretty special moment.
For a few hours, Martinelli’s films reminded everyone about the people, boats and stories from an era when the waterfront really was a “Nirvana” for traditional sailboats, and those who built, rebuilt, and most of all — sailed them.