‘Not the boys on the yacht!’: Inside a women’s club fleet takeover in Sausalito

A dispatch from Meet You There SF’s boating meetup

A note: With the exception of Stef Anderson, and Nate, I’ve changed all names in this piece. Not for privacy, but because I only remembered a few of them confidently. If you enjoy my writing, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. —FLD

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The last time I signed up to make a friend was junior year of college. I joined a sorority “just to see.” Over a decade later, I don’t speak to any of my “sisters” except one, a wine marketer in Napa. Still, I’m not opposed to elective socializing. Meeting like-minded women is hard, especially in a city as ambitious as San Francisco.

Of the 75 women gathered in Sausalito for Meet You There SF’s event, most hadn’t met before, but we were eager to float into the Bay by sunset and take a chance on (platonic) love.

One by one, groups of twelve loaded onto Duffy boats with BYOB drinks and snacks, including complimentary probiotic sodas. “You girls are probably tired of hearing my voice,” said Nate, a staffer at Sausalito Boat Rentals, after a winding safety spiel. No one on board had prior experience. I noted the life jackets beneath our seats and watched Allie, 26, grab the helm with stilted confidence and steer us into open water.

Allie is an architectural designer who moved to San Francisco from San Antonio three weeks earlier for her fiancé’s new job in tech. So far, she’s enjoying her new neighborhood, Dogpatch, and has already locked in the Golden Gate Club at the Presidio for her wedding next June. Blair, 27, shared her excitement about a date the following night—her first since moving from London to Marin four months ago. “A Friday date! I love those,” Brittany, 30, exclaimed.

Somewhere along the channel, surrounded by another cohort, was Stef Anderson, a content creator and the founder of Meet You There SF, a social club for women in the Bay Area. She first hosted meetups through her personal accounts (with more than 100,000 followers across platforms). But when each one drew hundreds, sometimes thousands, of attendees, she knew there was an opportunity to build a separate club where women could, simply, hang out.

“I’d walk up to a group of five, and three would be my followers, but the other two would say, ‘I have no idea who you are, but I’m here with my friends,’” she said. “I realized there are a lot of girls who don’t want to have to follow an influencer to find out about events in their area or meet new people.”

Several women I spoke to didn’t follow Anderson online. They came with a friend who did or saw the event promoted elsewhere. Lucia, 28, didn’t even live in California. She was visiting from Italy on a business trip, jet-lagged after landing just the day before. That weekend, she had plans to run the San Francisco Half Marathon before driving down to San Jose for meetings. When asked what she does for work, she said, “I optimize AI on supercomputers.”

The Americans spoke of tech, too. “I got the ick once he told me he worked in software as a service. SAAS to SAAS, I think?” one woman hesitated. “No, probably B2B SAAS,” said another, originally from West Hollywood. We passed by a boatful of men and waved with varying degrees of vigor. “Not the boys on a yacht!” Allie shouted. “Wait, should I be driving toward them?”

Since launching in April, Meet You There SF has hosted dozens of community events, from a Mediterranean dinner party to a Lake Tahoe ski trip to group walks, fitness classes, “Hot Girl Trivia Nights,” book clubs, and more. Anderson partners with local businesses and national brands like Sports Basement and FP Movement, Free People’s activewear sub-brand, to bring members bespoke experiences at discounted prices and, usually, with free goodies.

I’d been meaning to attend an event for months, but the fear that it would feel pitiful showing up to a public space eager to vibe it out held me back. That’s the entire premise of dating, I know, but I’m newly married and was hoping those days were behind me. I guess not.

In an interview with Anderson a week earlier, she told me that you can “feel the energy in the air.” That “you won’t understand it until you’re there thinking, ‘Wait, this is legit. It’s not just some girl on TikTok saying it.’” I have to say I agree.

No one extended an arm for a stiff handshake, nor went in for an unbelievable hug, as one might expect at a “girlies club” event. Everyone appeared normal and cool—and mostly in their twenties and thirties, though Anderson assured me women of all ages turn out. “Who’s everyone’s ‘Hear Me Out’?” Heather, 28, asked, referring to a celebrity we find attractive that society does not. Adam Driver and Jeremy Allen White were classic entries, but Steve Harvey, host of Family Feud, took the cake.

One woman, before even asking for my name, turned to me and demanded to know: “What’s the best meal you’ve had lately?” I told her Szechuan take-out. She recommended Saru on Polk, a sushi spot three blocks from my apartment that I’ve been eyeing for a year.

“Meeting people is hard, and it’s become more top of mind for me now that other friends have moved away or gotten married and started having kids,” said Brittany. Another woman, originally from Twin Peaks but now living in the Marina, said, “A lot of people who live in San Francisco are from here, so it can feel a little cliquey.” Allie, though a newbie, disagreed: “I feel more likely to have a candid interaction in SF than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.”

By evening, seals bopped their heads above the water’s surface and the rolling fog shrouded the bridge in mist. Lucia joked she needed to go home to the European summer heat. As we drifted toward the dock—our engine now burdened with seaweed, or “grass” as Nate called it—we saw Fjord, the floating sauna and plunge, crowded with what appeared to be naked men. Again, we waved vigorously. Three hours is a long time to be stuck on a boat with strangers, but I’d do it again.