Sausalito Houseboat Wars

Author John Byrne Barry will show his extensive set of photographs documenting the activities in the Marinship during the Sausalito Houseboat Wars.

John will also talk about his new novel Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Myster. It’s the late 1970s, and the “houseboat wars” erupt in Sausalito on the site of Marinship, the abandoned World War II shipyard. Hippies and squatters are living free and easy on houseboats in a ramshackle shantytown, and greedy developers are determined to evict them and build new docks to attract affluent residents. The counterculture is in full flower and the houseboaters, fearing their community will be destroyed, resist eviction with street theater, civil disobedience, monkeywrenching, and more. Like climbing into dinghies and pushing away police boats with oars. Like sinking a barge to block a pile driver. All in front of TV cameras! Then, someone gets stabbed.