Comment on Gritty southern waterfront city's last industrial stretch

Everybody who is interested in San Francisco ought to take a walk along the southern waterfront before it vanishes. There are a couple of gray ships tied up at Pier 50, a couple of blue-collar boat clubs, a disused floating dry dock that is spectacularly rusty, a white vessel that somehow sailed here from Iceland, three or four empty barges that list Petaluma as a home port, the city's only public boat launching ramp, and the pretty little Agua Vista bayside park and fishing pier. Every so often a steam whistle blows to signal lunchtime or a shift change, the sound bouncing back from Potrero Hill like an echo from San Francisco's industrial past. "On the east side of the line it's still the year 2000, and on the other side we are rushing toward 2020 as fast as we can," said John Super, a small boat sailor and former commodore of the Bay View Boat Club, which has been on this part of the waterfront for 50 years. The Mariposa members like power boats; the Bay View people are into sailboats. On Saturday, the Bay View is hosting the 30th annual Plastic Classic regatta, "a race for old worn-out fiberglass boats," as Super calls them. There are still vestiges of the old Santa Fe - tracks that lead nowhere and a forlorn abandoned railroad ferry slip just behind the Bay View Boat Club.