Sausalito Floating Home

SG Fine Homes never shies away from challenging projects.

Our client was looking for a quick weekend getaway and she discovered the community of houseboats, better known as “floating homes” in Sausalito , just an hour plus from her home. She was fortunate to find one in distress, with a million dollar view of the San Francisco Bay. Having no experience in this type of construction, we learned as we went about the different phases of this unique challenge. With the help of a local boat builder who happened to be leasing a drydock nearby, and several experienced helpers we moved the boat about a mile to his location, slid along the shipway and settled it on the ship cradle. The project took a little over a year and we worked through all the seasons.

Unfortunately, the man who had the drydock died suddenly before we were to move the boat back to the dock. We were basically on our own. My foreman took several measurements of the tides at night and daytime for a couple of weeks to determine the minimum of depth needed to launch the boat without damaging the hull. The tide has to be the right height and you can’t launch in the wind or haul it. Fortunately, we were able to hire a few local people, including a small tug boat and with the help of those people and the owner, we were successful in this process.