Boatyard Owners Clearing the Decks

After almost 60 years of repairing boats, the octogenarian Allemand brothers are closing their business, ending a colorful chapter in waterfront history here.

Rene “Flip” Allemand, 87, and his brother, John, 89, are retiring after running Allemand Bros. Boat Repairs in India Basin near Hunter’s Point since 1945.

They hauled their last boat out of the water for maintenance in October, and have begun winding down the operation, which they plan to close within the next few months. But first the brothers -- who some say were too kind-hearted for their own good -- have to get rid of some derelict wrecks left by customers who never reclaimed them.

Then they have to find homes for the boatyard’s watchdogs, Goldie, a 13-year-old Australian cattle dog with a bum leg who wandered into their yard one day, and her offspring, TowLine.

Jacky Douglas, known as Wacky Jacky, the only woman skipper of a party boat on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, has known the brothers since the 1950s. She and others recalled the Allemands’ generosity over the years.

Douglas said that if a fisherman was short of cash and couldn’t pay for repairs, the brothers would say: “When you make your first load, we’ll be here. Don’t worry about it.”

Flip, the gregarious brother, was known as a ladies’ man who once liked to smoke cigars and drink. John was the quiet, serious one.

“Flip was an expert painter. John was the expert woodworker,” said Taylor McGee, 84, a retired party boat owner who took his business to the brothers for 51 years.

“I never took my boat anywhere else,” McGee said. “They did very good work. You could depend on them to do what needed to be done and they’d do it right.”

But he said what made the brothers stand out from other boatyard operators was that they would allow boat owners to do the work themselves if they were so inclined.

“I don’t think there will be another boatyard like that one, because I don’t think there will ever be two people like Flip and John,” McGee said. “Everything today is cut-and-dried business. They wanted to make a living, but they also wanted to keep people happy.”

Sol Rabin, 86, who has been getting his boat repaired by the Allemand brothers for 50 years, says people who wanted to work on their own boats at the yard sometimes were subjected to a little good-natured ribbing.

“It wasn’t unusual for Flip to yell at you,” he said. “Then he’d come with a small can of paint and show you how to touch it up.

“Where else could you go and have work done, be insulted, leave and come back happy?” Rabin said.

Although the brothers are winding down their business, they’re continuing their daily coffee klatches. Rabin went to one last month, which drew seven people. “They come out of the woodwork,” he said.

Besides the morning gatherings, the brothers were hosts to happy hours after work at a full-sized bar in their offices. And then, for years. there were the weekend gatherings at their yard.

“Every Sunday was a wild barbecue with beer and wine,” Rabin said. “They’d show up from all over. There was rustic language. Very few women showed up. Earplugs could be in order.”

The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors issued a proclamation last month, praising the Allemands for their “legacy in helping mariners keep tight and safe ships through their superb workmanship, generous spirits and warm hearts.”

When they retire, Flip said he plans to visit friends in Spain and France. But first he needs to heal after breaking his pelvis in a fall. He was laid up for two months but is now hobbling around with a cane.

Asked what his brother planned to do in retirement, Flip said, “Stay home and take care of his wife.” He said John also needs to get a knee replaced after years of operating a crane at the boatyard.

Flip said what he would miss most is “the people, their friendship.” But Flip said he was thinking about moving the old office building a couple hundred feet down the hill when the business closes so the brothers can continue to visit with friends.

They’ll reminisce about the time years ago when nightclub dancer Yvonne d’Angers came to the boatyard for a photo session, and the more recent filming of scenes there with actor Keanu Reeves for the movie, “Sweet November.”

Tom Clothier, 63, said he was going to have to search out a new boatyard for his 65-year-old classic wooden yacht.

Clothier said the problem would be finding another yard where his boat can be gently hauled out of the water on tracks. Most yards use a lifting mechanism that can damage wooden boats, he said.

Clothier was one of those customers who did a lot of his own repair work at the Allemands’ yard.

He recalls a visit to the yard in 1999 to install a new motor and have the hull repainted.

John was at the controls of a crane, lifting the old engine out, while Flip stood below calling out directions.

“They had it turned 90 degrees to lift it out,” Clothier said. “John raised it up hard to set it down. As he swung it around, he hit the chimney and it came tumbling down.”

When Clothier later asked John why he hadn’t heard Flip on the ground, yelling at him to stop, John replied: “Oh, that’s my brother. He never knows what’s he’s talking about.”