ZEN SAILING
Brickyard Cove, home to homes with docks in back, businesses, some of them with docks, and lots and lots of sailboats.
the last few miles to San Francisco. The remains of the historic ferry dock are still plainly visible at the northwest end of the Potrero Reach.
J
ust to the east of the old ferry dock is a dilapidated warehouse that deserves a plaque on it describing the exploits of Floridian Bruce Perlowin. The only person we've ever interviewed at the top floor jail of the San Francisco Police Headquarters, Perlowin smuggled close to a half a billion — yes, with a 'b' — dollars' worth of pot into California, most of it into this warehouse. He would spend nine years in prison, including time in two of the last coed prisons in California. For Bruce, the hardest part of doing time seemed to be having an inmate girlfriend who had an inmate girlfriend who got to see her more often. As we pondered what Buddha would have said to a pot smuggler, a little breeze came up. A little breeze is all that a light boat like an Olson 30 needs to move along smartly, even when carrying plain sail. So after a bit of reaching and a jibe, we slipped between the two freestanding wave barriers that protect the harbor, and sailed into Brickyard Cove, home to the Richmond YC, just under 100 waterfront homes with docks, and a three-building waterfront business complex. When viewed from the air, Brickyard Cove, like Nature, has no straight lines. How Zen can you get? Founded in '32, the Richmond YC has long featured a very active sailing program, and has always given the more affluent St. Francis and San Francisco YCs a run for the most pickle dishes. The Richmond YC is a fine base out of which to hone any number of sailing skills, as it offers the protected waters of the cove for small boat sailors, and after sailing only a short distance, those with larger boats can usually choose how much wind and chop they wish to play with. There's more action toward the Central Bay and less toward the North Bay. And, it's almost always a mellow spinnaker run home from the West Bay. We're talking March to October, of course.
R
ichmond has had more of a roller coaster history than most cities. It was a nowheresville that got put on the map
ALL PHOTOS LATITUDE / RICHARD
W
hile we were Zen sailing the Olson 30 La Gamelle on the Richmond Riviera, the second of the four Zen circuits on San Francisco Bay, the wind died just after we rounded the northwestern end of the Richmond Harbor jetty. Temporarily unsure of what to do, we recalled a bit of Eastern wisdom: "We cannot see our reflection in running water, only in still water." So we looked over the side. Apparently we haven't achieved enlightenment yet, because all we saw was opaque greenbrown water. It The old ferry landing for looked pr etty transcontinental train cold, too. Dispassengers. couraged, we backslid to our old Western ways by firing up the iPad. It wasn't to play stupid video games or peruse porno, but rather to learn more about Richmond. When most people think about Richmond, a city of 100,000, one of the first things that pops to their mind is that it perennially ranks as one of the top ten most dangerous cities in the United States. While this is true, most of the crime takes place in the 'Iron Triangle', away from the boating interests. We've been going to various Richmond boating areas for 40 years and never had a problem. Richmond turns out to be a more interesting city than one might imagine. Here are three things about Richmond that we didn't know: 1) Richmond has more waterfront than any other city on San Francisco Bay. 2) In 1919, Richmond was home to the largest winery in the world. And, 3) From the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, Pt. Richmond was Santa Fe Railroad's western terminus. Passengers hopped aboard a ferry to cover
in the late 1800s by the transcontinental railroad. In the 1920s, the KKK was a popular social movement. In the '60s, Richmond was the first significant city in the United States to elect an AfricanAmerican mayor. In between came World II, during which time lots of women and minorities from the South migrated to the East Bay to work in Richmond's Kaiser Shipyards. These people — including the semi-mythical 'Rosie the Riveter' — turned out 747 Victory and Liberty ships, and the Richmond shipyard was declared the most productive in the country. The Kaiser company also started a field hospital for the workers, which over time has evolved into Kaiser Permanente — a health plan to which all Latitude employees belong. The remaining World War II dry docks are in ruins. The Red Oak, #587 of the Victory ships, is docked just before the Potrero Reach makes the turn into the Richmond Inner Harbor. Alas, she's not looking too spiffy these days. Neither is the 200-ft Wapama, the last of the 250 distinctive steam powered lumber
