Petaluma’s new Floathouse, years in the making, opens Saturday

Greg Sabourin has been paddling the Petaluma River for a long time.

As founder of the North Bay Rowing Club in the early 1980s, and more recently, of the Petaluma Small Craft Center, Sabourin has made it his goal to promote rowing and paddling on the River and make it more accessible to everyone – even those without their own craft or a place to launch them.

This longstanding goal crystallized into a mission in 2011, when Sabourin and others decided, “Let’s bring in everybody and form this coalition and get a boathouse built. So we did.”

Eleven years later, their work comes to fruition when the Floathouse opens this Saturday, Oct. 29, with rentals available from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day.

Sabourin said it would have been easier to build the Floathouse in the Marina, rather than in the Turning Basin, but being located in the heart of downtown was an important part of it.

“We’re all about river access,” he said, pointing out that until now, “No new public docks have been put in since the Marina was put in in the early ’90s.”

As with all such projects, the first step was finding funding. “We had to raise money for the docks, we had to drive the pilings.” The fleet of watercraft wasn’t cheap either, although some were donated.

Design was an important aspect too, and clearing everything with the city – and with property owners around the Turning Basin – was an involved process.

But with time and patience, Sabourin and his team got it done. The result, inspired by the Rowing Dock of Austin, Texas, is a 160-foot-long low-floating dock, smack in the Turning Basin and easily accessible via gangplanks on the east and west sides of the River. As a floating dock, it’s only half a foot off the water, making it easy for anyone to get in and out of their craft.

People are welcome to launch their own boats there free of charge, although Sabourin warned they may have to wait sometimes, as boat rental activity may make it too busy.

The “house” part of the Floathouse is really just a 10-by-10-foot canvas structure for attendants to use. But the main attraction, to Sabourin, is the colorful fleet of kayaks, rowboats and Hobie pedal-drives available for rent starting at $25 an hour.

There are more exotic vessels too. The Floathouse fleet includes three hydrobikes – bicycle-like craft with seat and pedals over a catamaran shell. “These are very stable. Everyone knows how to ride a bike,” Sabourin said.

Then there’s the Megalodon. At 15 feet long by 5 feet wide, this king of the stand-up paddleboards is big enough to float an entire family down the Petaluma River.

Having successfully gotten the Floathouse built and opened, the Petaluma Small Craft Center will continue to manage it, offering not only the rentals but a variety of classes and guided tours. Sabourin said the center is dedicated to “serving the underserved,” offering a variety of scholarships and after-school programs sure to draw kids of all ages out onto the water.

To learn more, or to reserve a watercraft for rent, go to thefloathousepetaluma.org.

Don Frances is editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at don.frances@arguscourier.com.