Anchored in the bay and not going away
Trimaran owner fouling waters at Aquatic Park, swimmers say
“If move he his ... would boat out further, the impact of the sewage and the obstruction wouldn’t be as great.” Reuben Hechanova, president, Dolphin Club
Turns out getting bitten by a seal isn’t the only danger in swimming at Aquatic Park. There’s also a renegade yachtsman to contend with.
For more than 100 nights, Bryan Pennington’s trimaran has been anchored without a permit in the protected cove of San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Swimmers say he has created a hazard by putting his boat in the marked lane and fouling the waters with human waste.
“If he was cooperative and would move his boat out further, the impact of the sewage and the obstruction wouldn’t be as great,” said Reuben Hechanova, president of the Dolphin Club, as he sat on the stone bleachers at Aquatic Park watching swimmers maneuver around the boat maybe 50 yards away.
“Seal bites we can deal with. The seal is at least transitory,” Hechanova said. “This person is permanent or at least has been so far. He is in our space, and it is a crime.”
Pennington, 52, who said he is “a world traveler,” and “a disabled American vet who is not wound too tight,” maintains that his boat has as much right to be there as the swimmers and seals.
“The rights of swimmers are not above the rights of mariners,’’ Pennington said when approached in front of the Aquatic Park grandstand, where he keeps a kayak tied to
a lamppost when he’s ashore.
The man-made cove next to the historic Hyde Street Pier and protected from the waves by the crumbling Municipal Pier is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. So far the standoff has involved the U.S. Park Police, the San Francisco Police marine unit, and the U.S. Coast Guard, which has cited Pennington for seven violations, including a felony for obstructing an attempt to board his vessel.
Aquatic Park Cove is not a marina. There are no facilities for pumping out waste. Rules allow a craft to anchor in the cove for a maximum of five nights in a row or 30 nights total a year. In either case, a permit is required for overnight anchoring. Pennington is allegedly in violation of all three.
Now the dispute has gone to federal court, where Pennington has pleaded not guilty to three counts of violating a permit requirement, each punishable by six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.
When asked if he has a permit and how long he has been at anchor, Pennington answered, “I cannot divulge. I’m in trial,” before walking off to a nearby Starbucks that he apparently uses as a land base.
The nuisance has been compounded by a series of bites suffered by swimmers in the cove during December and January, and attributed to a marauding seal or sea lion. This has compelled swimmers to stick close to shore to avoid hungry seals. Pennington also sticks close to shore, apparently to reduce the distance on his daily paddles to land.
“If this were in San Francisco waters he would be long gone,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a longtime swimmer and member of the South End Rowing Club. Peskin said club members have been bugging him to do something about Pennington and he, in turn, has been bugging the Park Service to do something about Pennington.
“This has been going on for months,” Peskin said. “Every week passes, and he is still there.”
The next hearing of United States of America vs. Bryan Pennington is March 15, and its implications are broader than just one man on one boat creating a nuisance for some coldwater swimmers.
“If he gets away with it,” said the Dolphin Club’s Hechanova, “there will be a new invasion of squatters anchoring in the cove and polluting the waters.”
Pennington maintains that he is a victim. His story is that he entered San Francisco Bay in September to “sail the three bridges,” Golden Gate, Bay and Richmond-San Rafael. At some point his Searunner 34 trimaran was involved in a collision with the San Francisco Police Department’s marine unit.
Pennington then sailed his damaged vessel into Aquatic Cove, which he calls “the safest harbor you can get,” to wait for the SFPD to repair his boat. But the police report states that the marine unit had come to the aid of Pennington when his anchor became entangled, and there was only minor damage to a railing on his boat.
He dropped anchor Sept. 26, according to court records, and has been in the cove off and on ever since, for a total of 119 nights and counting, according to a letter of complaint filed Feb. 20 by Morgan Smith, acting superintendent for the maritime park. He has not left the cove for at least 70 days to pump out his sewage tank, according to the complaint.
The Searunner 34 is built to sleep five and Pennington said he is comfortable and warm and can even build fires on board. His trimaran is easy to spot. It is the one with “Move The Boat” on its hull above the water line — graffiti Pennington maintains was scrawled by swimming club members. He also maintains they took his dinghy, forcing him to rely on a blue plastic kayak to reach shore. He wants his property back, his boat repaired and the graffiti removed.
“I’m not getting out of here until they fix my yacht,” he said. “Period.”
It’s not the first time Pennington has had trouble in harbor.
An earlier altercation in Santa Barbara involved harbor patrol officers, who tried to stop Pennington for questioning about trespassing on a dock.
“Defendant then stepped back, assumed a martial arts stance, forcefully kicked officer (Richard) Hubbard’s thigh, kicked Officer (Ryan) Kelly’s shin and began to throw wild punches,” reads the court record. “Pennington had to be restrained with a taser and handcuffs.”
Pennington was convicted of misdemeanor battery on a peace officer. But he appealed on the grounds that harbor patrol officers were not peace officers. His conviction was upheld on appeal but overturned by the state Supreme Court on the grounds that the primary duty of the harbor patrol was not law enforcement, therefore the assaulted parties were not peace officers.
Swimmers have reported being threatened by Pennington when encountered on land, and they’ve reported seeing Pennington dump buckets of waste overboard. Twice his boat has slipped anchor and drifted, once striking the historic C.A. Thayer schooner, the other time hitting the Municipal Pier, according to superintendent Smith’s report.
In response to all of this, two members of the Coast Guard and one park police officer boarded his vessel in February. Pennington was described in a report as being “verbally combative.”
His boat lacked registration and officers discovered buckets of human waste in the vessel.
One day later at a hearing in United States District Court, Pennington was unable to provide a permanent address or phone number. When later asked by The Chronicle where he is from, Pennington responded “the planet Earth.”
Park police are seeking a “stay away order,” that would give Pennington 72 hours to remove his boat from Aquatic Park. If he does not comply, police have requested that the judge allow the boat to be impounded.
“We don’t want that,” said Capt. Jerry Marshall, of the U.S. Park Police. “We want him to leave.”