It’s a silvery winter morning in Sausalito, California, and the docks of Waldo Point Harbor are still slick from last evening’s showers and the cool coastal mist. Lights flicker on as I walk past rows of handcrafted houseboats and spot Stewart Brand waving from the deck of the Mirene, the 1912 tugboat on which he’s lived with his wife, Ryan Phelan, for over 40 years.

“She was built as a gasoline schooner, and her mission was going to be working in Alaska bringing fish from the deep-sea fishers into port,” says Stewart. “She was so strongly built that she didn’t have much cargo space, and so she flunked out.” The Mirene found work ferrying goods and passengers throughout the Pacific Northwest, and in the ’30s she was converted into a diesel tug for hauling log rafts along the Columbia and Willamette rivers. Her sturdy wood hull survived groundings on sand spits, brushes with fire, and the occasional misadventure.

“Every now and then a former skipper comes down and says, ‘Well, that’s where she wound up!’” says Stewart with a grin. “Their stories go, ‘Yeah, I was drunk, the crew was drunk, we were bouncing off one shore and then the other.’” In 1975, the Mirene sailed down to Sausalito as a dying vessel, her engine and hardware were sold off, and she joined the bohemian community at Dredgetown, an informal settlement of floating homes that disbanded in 1982.

“The pilothouse bedroom is best in a howling storm, having just dashed up the ladder in the rain and wind to luxuriate in safe coziness.”
—Stewart Brand, resident

When Ryan and Stewart first saw the Mirene in 1981, she was a derelict hulk—a floating but nonseaworthy vessel. The couple were in love and living at opposite ends of Richardson Bay; as he was working on the Whole Earth Catalog, the legendary counterculture magazine he launched in 1968, Stewart would row a skiff from his Belvedere boathouse to his office in Sausalito, where Ryan had an apartment. They were looking for a place to move in together when, according to Stewart, a friend, the late cartoonist Phil Frank, said, “There’s this old tugboat anchored out—it’s in rough shape, but you could get in there with a SWAT team of carpenters, fix it up, and move aboard.”

The decks and bulwarks were rotted. The walls had 15 layers of paint, and plastic bags were tacked to the ceiling to collect leaks. But the couple could tell the boat was well built—and the hull was sound—so they paid $8,000 for the title, assembled a crew with builder Pete Retondo, and got to work.

“The truth is we employed just about everybody on the waterfront—anyone who had any expertise,” recalls Ryan. The team tore out rotted wood, rebuilt the galley, built a bathroom, replaced the bulwarks and decks, converted the engine room into a library, and turned the wheelhouse and skipper’s cabin into a bedroom. In 1996, the couple installed a 500-horsepower diesel engine, set up the wheelhouse roof as a flybridge, and embarked on their first voyage around the bay. “Our vision was to always honor the integrity of the boat,” Ryan says.

Now 85 years old, Stewart climbs down the ladder from the bedroom, ducks inside the galley, and eases his six-foot frame into a corner with a built-in bench. Before him is a table he bought from an antiques dealer that was once on a boat Otis Redding rented. Legend has it Redding worked on “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” while at the table. A breeze floats in through the pocket windows, stirring up the smell of fresh coffee and rich resin; the room is clad in Douglas fir varnished four coats thick. “On a sunny day, the light bounces off all the walls,” says Ryan. “It’s like living in a musical instrument.”

The 64-foot vessel has just 450 square feet of living space, so the quarters are tight—“People who live on boats know how to step gently out of each other’s way,” notes Stewart—but the wraparound deck eases circulation, and there’s a place for everything essential to be neatly stowed.

Ryan fixes breakfast on a Corian counter that folds out near the range, surrounded by a sink with brass hardware, an original copper-rimmed porthole, and a bevy of latching cabinets. To the aft is the bathroom, with a bright red Japanese ofuro tub, and the library, where French doors open to a deck with views over the bay and of the distant San Francisco skyline.

“Taking care of a 1912 wooden boat that lives on the water requires constant upkeep. There’s always part of it being worked on.”
—Ryan Phelan, resident

This waterfront setting is Ryan’s favorite part of living on a 1912 tugboat. “It’s the birds, it’s the water, it’s the sea life,” she says. “It’s ever-changing.” As if on cue, a loon surfaces just off the stern.

As the couple look ahead, their main goal is to maintain the Mirene so that future owners can keep her going for another century. “When we started this project, we were a lot younger,” says Ryan. “At some point, we want to welcome aboard the next generation.”

“She’s sound,” Stewart says of their boat. “That’s kind of a miracle.”

A Fantastic Voyage

1910: Frank C. Barnes commissions Kruse & Banks to build the Mirene (named after his wife, Isabelle Mirene Payne) as a 64-foot gasoline schooner for tending canneries in Alaska.
1912: The schooner is completed in Coos Bay, Oregon. It serves for one season in Alaska before returning to the Pacific Northwest to ferry cargo and passengers.
1930s: The Mirene is converted intoa diesel tugboat and eventually becomes the founding vessel of a tugboat fleet.
1975: The ship is sailed to Sausalito, California, stripped of its engine, hardware, and steering wheel, and converted into a floating home in Dredgetown, an old houseboat community.
1982: Ryan and Stewart buy the Mirene as a derelict hulk for $8,000 and rebuild her with a crew of carpenters led by contractor Pete Retondo.
1996: The couple work with John Burns and Alan Olson to install a 500-horsepower diesel engine and a new flybridge to return the vessel to seaworthy status.
2000: Helmed by Ryan, the Mirene wins first place in a tugboat race in San Francisco Bay.
2012: To celebrate the ship’s centennial, Stewart and Ryan travel to Oregon to track down its past. They repair and refinish the Mirene inside and out.

Project Credits:

Builder/General Contractor: Pete Retondo

Shipwrights: John Burns and Alan Olson

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Head back to the May/June 2024 issue homepage

Updated on 5/14/24: This article originally referred to Stewart Brand as the cofounder of the Whole Earth Catalog. In the debut issue, he is listed as one of several preparers.

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