Boaters from the ‘anchor outs’ movement go to war with Marin County for forcing them on to land

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A small but determined flotilla of boat owners is ready to fight to the last sailor as wealthy bureaucrats seek to sink their way of life.

Several so-called “anchor outs” in Marin County’s Richardson Bay refuse to leave the area as officials view them as nuisances to the environment and public safety.

Officials want the boaters, whom they deem to be commanding “illegally anchored vessels,” gone, but at least one seafarer says he won’t go without a fight.

“They’re having a hard time finding out how to get me out of here,” Chad Wycliffe told the New York Times. “They’re going to have to kill me.”

Wycliffe, 45, has lived rent-free on the bay’s waters for decades. He’s gone to tremendous lengths, risking life and skiff, to keep it that way.

Once, when officials ordered him to leave, he sailed out to the open waters of the Pacific Ocean and stayed there.

But the dangerous ocean waters made it difficult for him to travel between his boat and his skiff. Yet he’s fine with dying before local officials can force him to lose his sea legs.

“I’ve lived this way for so long that I don’t really know how to live any other way,” he said. “It’s weird saying that because people would think that, well, it’s more dangerous to live out here.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I’d rather die out here.”

Wycliffe is one of the last holdouts of a floating community that once offered an escape from the Bay Area’s sky-high housing costs. After decades on the water, the remaining boat dwellers face a final push to clear the bay.

The crackdown has divided locals.

Authorities say many vessels are dangerous, abandoned or environmentally harmful, while supporters see the campaign as another blow to Sausalito’s independent maritime culture.

“The anchor outs are the edge,” Sausalito-based investor and sculptor Sophia Collier told the Times. “Those are our saltiest residents.”

The community dates to the years after World War II, when artists and veterans began living aboard vessels left behind by a closed shipyard.

Earlier efforts to clear the waterfront led to violent clashes known as the Houseboat Wars. Most residents eventually moved into regulated marinas, but some stayed offshore, and as rents soared, the number of boats in Richardson Bay climbed to nearly 250 by 2016.

Complaints grew with the fleet: rubbish and human waste in the water, and boats that broke loose in storms, caught fire or sank.

Officials also say anchors and chains damage eelgrass beds that shelter marine life. The Richardson Bay Regional Agency has cleared more than 500 vessels it considers derelict as of October, according to executive director Brad Gross.

Since 2022, officials have offered $150 per foot for surrendered boats, and a $3 million state grant funded temporary housing assistance.

But in May 2025, rising rents drained the housing authority’s budget, leaving some former residents without stable homes.

Meredith Rodas, 56, who lived on the bay for 20 years, told the Times she and her husband sought assistance but did not receive it. Last month, they were staying in a pickup truck with their two dogs. “It’s a disaster,” she said.

Gross said those who didn’t secure housing had been referred to housing officials, but stressed the agency’s assistance was limited.

Even some who found housing mourn what was lost. “They’ve managed to obliterate our community that’s been around for 70 years,” Peter Glaser, 65, told the Times.

Wycliffe has refused to move ashore, saying the options offered couldn’t accommodate him and his two dogs. Instead, he has moved his sailboat farther offshore, where rougher conditions make life more dangerous but help him evade officials.

For him, that risk is still preferable to giving up the only home he has known for much of his adult life.

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