Description
Alan Clarke was a ship pilot who worked in San Francisco Bay for almost forty years. Born in San Rafael in 1918, Clarke attended university at the College of Marin and St. Mary’s College and later joined the Army Transportation Service as a tugboat officer and served as a tug skipper and pilot for the US Army, Crowley Maritime’s Red Stack and the San Francisco Bar Pilots. In this interview, Clarke discusses his father Captain Raymond Clarke and the Richmond-San Rafael Ferry Company, the Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor, the harbor before and during World War II, working for the Crowley Maritime Corporation, the Port of Richmond, and his thoughts on the future of Richmond’s waterfront.