“THE SAGA OF HARBOR BILL,” BY MATT GEORGE (1986)
Matt George’s piece on “Harbor Bill” Mulcoy ran in the July 1986 issue of SURFER Magazine. This version has been slightly edited.
* * *
THE PROBLEM
Harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer leaned against his office window, steaming coffee mug in hand, and sighed deeply. He had a problem. A big problem. Its name was a shadow known only as “Harbor Bill.” No last name, no other information at all, but he’d moved to the forefront of an ongoing battle between the Santa Cruz Harbor Patrol and the surfers who illegally ride the waves at the harbor’s entrance.
Scheiblauer had the Army Corps of Engineers to thank for that. It was their construction blunder, years ago, that caused the dramatic shoaling off the west jetty in the first place. For surfers, the resulting sandbar meant a perfect winter wave. For boat owners, it meant a recurring winter nightmare—a gauntlet of ocean violence to be run whenever the surf was up. Sometimes, in fact, the surf barricaded the entrance completely, damming them in like so many beavers.
But all that didn’t matter now. Laws had been passed; Scheiblauer had a job to do. He must arrest Harbor Bill for surfing the entrance and breaking the law, pure and simple. A scapegoat? Maybe. But then sometimes that’s just another name for a leader.
The Harbormaster tested his coffee and eyed his jurisdiction, a rather quaint harbor setting, sighed, and for a moment wished there was a way for everyone to cooperate. Being a surfer himself, he respected a great many of them as good watermen, and had an understanding of their independent nature. Indeed, their ocean knowledge had resulted in saved lives at the harbor entrance when inexperienced boat owners had foundered and broached and ended up flailing in the water. He’d seen it with his own eyes. But cooperation was out of the question, so was any real communication. They’d tried, but a small group of ill-mannered surfers had blown that angle. And now it had come time for the patrol to do their duty: uphold the law.
Another sigh. It bugged Scheiblauer a little that this one guy had been so elusive and had escaped arrest so many times. This character actually had a following, like some surfing Robin Hood. Other surfers, when apprehended, staunchly refused to give his name, and on a number of occasions civilians had gone so far as to cheer and aid his escapes. A recent one in particular . . . .
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Excerpt from Santa Cruz Harbor Police crime report:
Deputy Morley and myself responded to the entrance of the harbor channel in the Avon (Inflatable) patrol boat. The park rangers took positions in their vehicles on the east and west side beaches. Harbor Bill continued to surf defiantly by yelling and continually displaying the middle finger sign at us. Harbor Bill, at one point of this profane conversation, challenged both Deputy Morley and myself to “come over” and “fight right here . . . name the time and place, you chickenshits, I’ll be there.” Neither Morley nor myself responded to those challenges.
Harbor Bill:
Well, I had a few words for them I guess. All’s I tried to do was say, “Let’s have a gentlemen’s agreement and duke it out at the local gym, you name the place and I’ll be there.” I mean, what could I do? I’m sick of this, I just want to go surfing, not threaten people. So the other guys out in the water saw this and scattered. The beach and cliffs were crawling with rangers, it was a damn free-for-all. One ranger actually hopped in the water and dragged some guy in by hand. So about this time my friend and me, we had to make up our minds. So my friend took off on a wave, flipped the HP off and we lit out.
By the time we hit Black’s Point to the south, everyone was after us. We went in and started climbing the cliff and then we saw the rangers coming down. Well (laughs) about this time back at the office they’re booking this little kid, a buddy of mine, and he can hear over the dispatch all the rangers saying, “We got Harbor Bill, we’ve got him! He’s trapped!” And this kid starts yelling, “No way! You’ll never catch him! That’s Harbor Bill!” So we just turned and ran back into the water and started scratching through the sets. Everybody on the cliffs was cheering. We didn’t hit the beach again ’til Santa Maria’s, and some older couple ran up to us and said, “Hey! Give us your boards and run for it!” Can you believe that? All the people were trying to help these crazy surfers. But then the rangers pulled up so we had to hit the water again, and by the time we got to 26th Avenue, it was getting dark. A big set was corning in just as the Harbor Patrol boats arrived to get us (laughs), and that was pretty much that, they had to turn around and bail.
Excerpt from Santa Cruz Harbor Police crime report:
Two state rangers, Officer Morley in a patrol boat, and myself in a patrol boat, chased the two in the water to Pleasure Point where we aborted the chase due to manpower shortage and water conditions too hazardous to continue. At 26th Ave. I was able to come in close to the subjects, and I told them that if need be we could outlast them and why don’t they make it easy on themselves and just go in. Subject #2 told me that they would outlast us. I drove the patrol boat away as the subject continued yelling the same kind of dialogue.
THE X-FACTOR
Harbormaster Scheiblauer shook his head slowly. There had been so many other times. They lost him once when he ran down the beach and paddled out under the wharf into huge surf. Another time he had buried his board in the sand up on the beach and casually walked past the very officers that were looking for him. And there was even some wild rumor that he’d hidden among a rookery of seals off Steamer Lane until the coast was clear—the public loved that one. Hell, they loved him. Who was this guy anyway? Did he even have a name?
Scheiblauer turned from the picture window and sat at his desk. It was early yet, still time to peruse the morning mail. He was stoked when he saw the new issue of SURFER had arrived; positively elated when he found that it featured an article on Santa Cruz. Then suddenly, as he turned to page 83, he froze in his chair as the answer to the problem jumped up and slapped him awake.
The paragraph read:
All the Town spots await. Maybe you’ll hit rivermouth, right next to the Boardwalk. Or maybe the Harbormouth, that million-dollar wave, and the kind of place where legends are made in a day. Pat O’Neill’s late drops are still talked about, and “Harbor Bill” Mulcoy’s local knowledge of the place allows him heroism five times a day.
There it was in black and white. His name. Harbor Bill Mulcoy.
The city directory provided all the info needed for an arrest. In one instant of sheer chance, the thorn in Steve Scheiblauer’s side was cleanly plucked. He leaned back, finished his coffee, and only then did he reach for the phone.
At 3:50 p.m. June 14, 1985, William John Mulcoy, 37, a golf course groundskeeper, husband and father, walked into the Harbormaster’s office to, as it states in the official report, “Face the music.” After 14 years, the game was up.
THE MAN
“After all the trouble I’ve had out there and after all the escapes and the chases, I was really expecting a much more exciting bust. Considering my commitment, you know? I’ve surfed that wave for 14 years. I’ve gone through a couple of Harbormasters. But it’s my break, you know? Me and the Harbor go way back.
“I saw a picture of it when I was a kid. I’d just started surfing, but knew even then I was gonna ride it someday. I liked a challenge. And what could be more challenging around here than riding someplace like the Harbor? Taking off in front of tons of cement and pulling into barrels that are a live or die situation. I mean, once you tap into whatever it is out there, well, shoot! It’s like being buried alive and then somehow living. How are you going to explain something like that to normal people?
‘‘I set up my whole life to be able to surf that place whenever I wanted to, and now they’re going to try and screw it all up. So now I guess I got something to do here. I won’t plead guilty. I’m just a surfer, you know? If I ever want to get a little piece of mind and be able to surf the Harbor again without being some kind of outlaw, I’m just gonna have to fight it.
“But all I ever really wanted and still want is for everyone to just leave me alone and let me ride deep, ride ’til I hit the jetty someday and can’t ride no more.”
EPILOGUE
William “Harbor Bill” Mulcoy was charged with violating section 131 of the Harbor and Navigations code (interfering with the navigation of vessels; obstructing a navigable waterway) and section 148 of the penal code (resisting arrest). Mulcoy and his lawyers plan to contest these charges and submit the idea of having the Harbormouth break declared as a recreational surf resource for the citizens of Santa Cruz.
The legal battle will be expensive. Contributions may be sent to: The Harbor Bill Fund, c/o the Santa Cruz Surf Shop, 745 41st St., Santa Cruz, CA 95062.
[Josh Mulcoy, Bill’s son, talked to ESPN in 2010 about his father: “He beat the charges. He won because basically there wasn’t an official law on the books and no one ever challenged it, they’d just paid the fine. He fought it for years and finally won. It was a big win for our community. What’s ironic is that was about the time he was over it all and moved to Hawaii.]
[Photos: Matt George, City of Santa Cruz]