No resources to remove blighted paddle boat from Vallejo’s waterfront

VALLEJO — Commuters who ride the ferry between Vallejo and San Francisco are familiar with the sight – a sunken three story paddle boat on the southern shore between the old Sperry Mill silos and the Kiewit storage yard.

The 130-foot-long Grand Romance has deteriorated since it was first moored in Vallejo in 2018. It has been vandalized, sank to the shallow bottom a few years ago, and was gutted and blackened by a fire last September.

The boat’s owner William Barker said he is in a Catch 22. In order to rent a commercial slip where restoration work can begin, the boat needs to be insured, but the vessel can’t be insured until it is repaired and seaworthy. Barker said he is searching for a private property owner somewhere in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta area who will take it in, but he said that current rain and flooding conditions are making the delta area unusable until later in the spring.

Barker said that the Mare Island Dry Dock is not an option because they’re backed up and also require insurance. He said that dry dock operations, where a boat is raised out of the water to expose the hull, is an expensive last step in required maintenance. He said he first needs to find a place to restore the boat’s cosmetics and to replace the engine.

The Grand Romance has drawn the ire of Vallejoans who perceive it as an abandoned shipwreck and environmental hazard. Vallejo residents Melissa Swift and Paula Marckesano-Jones wrote in a 2022 email that they have repeatedly contacted the Coast Guard, the State Lands Commission, Vallejo City Hall, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office and others over the past several years requesting to have the boat removed, and nothing has been done. 

Marckesano-Jones said that she met with the Coast Guard at the boat in August 2022. She said Coast Guard officials told her there is no law that requires the boat to be moved unless there is an environmental issue, and with no signs of oil slicks or liquid seepage from the vessel, and no gas or oil stored on board, there was nothing they could do. 

“The [Coast Guard] officer agreed with me when I said that our best chance for getting it off of our waterfront would be to garner support for the owner and his plans to revive the boat,” Marckesano-Jones wrote.

The Coast Guard told the Sun in an email that the owner is responsible for abating the vessel. “The Coast Guard has been on scene multiple times and spoken with other agencies about possible ways to dispose of the vessel,” Coast Guard Sector San Francisco spokesperson  Jillian Stuckey said in an email. “Currently, the Coast Guard does not have the authority to remove the derelict vessel.”

Abandoned boats are a big environmental problem in the Bay Area. One program to mitigate the cleanup cost of derelict boats is the Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange – a grant program to remove, reduce and prevent abandoned recreational vehicles in waterways – but the program is not intended for large commercial vessels. 

The Grand Romance fits the California Harbors and Navigation code definition of “Wrecks and Wrecked Property,” which means the city or county could seize it for abatement. But the Grand Romance is not blocking any shipping lanes and there’s little impetus for any government agency to incur the cost of removal. 

Nicole C. Sasaki, Staff Attorney for the nonprofit group Baykeeper, told the Vallejo Sun in an email that state laws authorize, but do not require, local authorities to remove derelict vessels. 

“Ultimately, the availability of sufficient funding is typically the deciding factor in whether or not a vessel is removed and abated,” Sasaki said. “Baykeeper will continue to pressure legislators to push for additional funding for derelict/abandoned vessel removal, and the residents of Vallejo can also let their legislators know this is an issue they want prioritized and funded.”

The City of Vallejo spent over $500,000 to dispose of a similar boat that had unrealized dreams of doing business as a floating restaurant in 2019. The Sherman was berthed in the Vallejo Municipal Marina for over two-and-a-half years, blocking other boaters in, so pressure on the city to take action was high.

Barker brought the Grand Romance to Vallejo in 2018 after his permit to operate in Long Beach was revoked. He planned to reopen it for dinner cruises and parties on the Vallejo waterfront. 

Email records between Barker and city of Vallejo personnel between February 2020 and September 2021 obtained through a public records request reveal parallel conversations.

Barker repeatedly requested permission to upgrade the dock at Vik’s Wheelhouse for the Grand Romance, at one time asking Mayor Robert McConnell to intervene on his behalf. City staff told him multiple times that his first step had to be an amendment to the Waterfront Planned Development Master Plan to allow commercial use at that location, and permission from the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) to allow changes to the dock.

The last email communication obtained by the Vallejo Sun between Barker and the city was from Interim Planning and Development Services Director Christina Ratcliffe in September of 2021.

Ratcliffe forwarded Barker an email with the guidance he had received in February 2020, and wrote, “When we spoke in July, I stressed the need to reach out as soon as possible to BCDC and find out the feasibility of the proposal, especially the dock work, what their process is, as well as the CEQA process, as that is the critical path item. This is still the case.”

Barker claims that it won’t be difficult to get the Grand Romance floating again. He said he’d pump the water out and patch a small hole where the water is coming in. Barker said that for the moment, the Grand Romance is safer sitting on the bottom of the shoreline than it would be if it were floating and subject to being pushed around by the wakes of passing ferries.

For the foreseeable future, that’s where it will remain.