The Oakland Pirates
Conn Carroll
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The Raiders may have left Oakland for Las Vegas, but a villain big and bold is still robbing residents of their gold — or, more specifically, their outboard motors.
Pirates, yes pirates, have invaded the San Francisco Bay, taking advantage of defunded police departments by stealing into marinas in the dead of night on dinghies, pillaging just for fun, and then slinking back into the inky darkness.
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Their main target so far has been the well-heeled yet unprotected marinas of the Oakland Estuary, an 800-foot-wide channel separating the city of Oakland from the island of Alameda. Yachts and houseboats docked at the Alameda Community Sailing Center, the Encinal Yacht Club, and even the Jack London Aquatic Center have all been targets.
While thieves will ransack a yacht for anything of value, and some entire boats have been stolen, the main target of the Oakland pirates appears to be outboard motors.
“Yeah, the motors are the thing,” Jaime Camacho told the San Francisco Chronicle. “You’ve got to figure a brand-new, small 10-horsepower engine is $10,000-$15,000. So, even in the black market, they can probably get a couple thousand.”
Marina residents believe most of the pirates come from the rapidly growing “anchor-out” communities that have grown along with the homeless populations on land. While a million-dollar houseboat with plumbing and electricity can pay $1,000 a month in docking fees, the anchor-outs drop anchor for free in the middle of the bay on semi-derelict boats free of charge. Everything they need to survive, including water, food, and medical supplies, must be brought in by dinghies, usually equipped with an outboard motor.
It is these vessels that residents think the pirates are using to raid their communities.
Oakland has just one officer dedicated to the Oakland Estuary, and unless there is a violent crime in action, the police aren’t responding to anyone’s call.
“It’s almost the Wild West,” Marina Village Yacht Harbor investor Steve Meckfessel told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s almost as if you were on a ship and there are pirates out there and there’s no government, no one to protect you.”
The piracy in Oakland has gotten so bad that the Coast Guard has started to patrol the area. “Our plan is to increase the level of Coast Guard law enforcement presence in the estuary at random times throughout the day,” Coast Guard Capt. Taylor Lam told KGO News. “Our primary effort from the Coast Guard is to ensure that there is a deterrent.”
Maybe with the federal authorities involved, at least one community in Oakland will get a semblance of law and order back.