Peter Strietman: Port Sausalito

by: Steefenie Wicks
Jack Tracy wrote in his book, Sausalito Moments in Time, that Sausalito is first and foremost a place with a rich history and residents who love and defend their town with uncommon civic pride and participation.   This description describes the many talented people who have worked and lived over the years at Gate 3, part of Sausalito’s working waterfront.  Peter Strietman has been part of that working waterfront for over three decades.  Recently, Strietman was given 30 days to move his 10-year boat restoration project from his shop space at Gate 3.  The request for his removal resulted in his decision to destroy the vessel.  
While he was working on the vessel named Port Luck, he spoke with me about his time on the Sausalito waterfront.
“I came to Sausalito in 1979, I lived aboard my boat which at that time was an Adkins design double-ended ketch called Burma Girl. She was 42 ft. on deck, 52ft over all.
“I lived on the anchorage like everyone else at that time but needed shop space so I could work on my boat.  I had heard about the Gate 3 Co-Op through folks who were working on boats, decided to check it out, liked what I experienced there and became a member, that was in 1981.  At that time Gate 3 was like a small town within the City of Sausalito.  The property was then owed by Donlon Arques, who was supportive of people living on their boats and working on their boats so he had this entire community of boat workers living at Gate 3, on their boats.  In those days if you were part of the Gate 3 Boat Co-Op then you were part of the elite boat builders working on the waterfront at that time.  I should put together a list of the old members -- people like Peter Lamb (who restored the whale boats onboard the tall ship Balcutha), Dan Jones, John Belinski (who has re-built most of the rowing crafts at the San Francisco Dolphin Club), Peter Bailey (who built his boat the Bertie here at Gate 3 and went on to design the ships for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies), Dudley Lewis (he built and launched his boat at Gate 3), even Bob Darr was a member of the Gate 3 Boat Co-Op.
“The Co-Op was a sharing organization, tools were passed back and forth and nothing was ever lost or stolen.  At the high point there were over 22 members, then Argues died, the property was sold, then in 1986 the residential community was evicted, things changed slowly but they changed.  Some of us at the Co-Op decided that we would try and stay.  After all, our organization was over 25 years old and had always paid rent but the lease that was put together by the new owner of the property proved to be an undesirable contract so the group was broken.
“The Sausalito waterfront is changing, the boat builders are leaving because there is no space for them to rent.  Gate 3 was the last hold-out as far as workable waterfront, but that changed.  Working on wooden boats has changed, many people who worked on these wooden boats have left the area, and the support that the working waterfront community used to have is no longer there.”
I asked Strietman if he would continue to sail and work on wooden boats.  As it turns out he has been working on another wooden boat that has taken 5 years for him to restore, an old traditional sandbagger, named Flirt, built by well known Sausalito Boatwright Ralph Flowers.  Launched off Mare Island in 1919, the vessel is 29.5 ft. long and 12 ft. wide with no standing room in the cabin.
Flowers once told Streitman about designing boats for the Treasury department to chase down the local rumrunners. But what the Treasury department did not know was that the guys who were designing their boats were also designing the boats that the rumrunners were using, and somehow their boats were designed to be faster.
Strietman says that when he became interested in the Flirt he went to Flowers and asked him for advice. He says that Ralph told him to “take the damn thing out and sink it,” but reconsidered, then helped him work on the boat.  Strietman says that Flowers by this time was old and thin but could be seen riding his old 3-speed bike all over town until his death at 95.  In his honor and because he built most of the Arks, one was named after him.
In closing I asked Strietman if he had any positive thoughts about the waterfront and the direction that it is taking.  He agreed that there were positive aspects such as the Spalding Center, the Arques Traditional Boat Building School, the new Cass’s Marina project, Alan Olson’s building of the Matthew Turner and the Galilee Harbor Community, there is hope that the heart and soul of the Sausalito waterfront will continue and maybe -- just maybe -- these new groups will be able to grow and pass on Sausalito’s waterfront heritage.


Peter Streitman with the transom from Port Sausalito
Photo by Steefenie Wicks