Fish & Game Out This Weekend

Noticed that the Fish & Game boat is working again. This shot was taken Friday at 2:00 PM.

MY BAD!

In my column this week I wrote: "For what it's worth, in my opinion, the Harbor Commission needs to feel some love for the City Council if it truly expects good feedback. "

In my mind, I meant to write "From the City Council". I will retract that statement in my next column.

Unedited: Interview with Harbor Resources Manager Chris Miller

This last week I had a chance to sit down with Newport Harbor Resources Manager Chris Miller and ask him a few questions. Harbor Resources is structured under the city’s Public Works Department and is tasked to manage everything on the waterside of our harbors bulkheads. This includes piers, dredging, pump out stations, city codes, complaints, permits pertaining to our harbor and much more.

Chris Miller grew up in Newport Beach and as a child sailed sabots in The Balboa Yacht Clubs junior program. “One of my fondest memories as a 5^th grader was sailing my sabot up to the fun zone, getting some Pizza at “Pizza Pete’s” and playing skee ball for most of the afternoon” Chris told me.  He attended Carden Hall for grade school and then went to Newport Harbor High School, Arizona State University and Chapmans. Along the way he worked in the city’s youth employment services, the city’s parking lots then latter returned back to the harbor and was hired as our Harbor Supervisor and worked under his mentor Tom Rossmiller. Chris has now been our Harbors Manager over the last three years. During this time his three most memorable projects have been the completion of  last years dredging of the Rhine Channel, mooring fields realignment and the  refurbished Public Docks. “ I truly enjoy working with the public on projects, I get to met people like Carter Ford who put in a tremendous amount of time into the public docks making sure they came out as well as they did” Chris told me.

Up coming projects for 2012 is dredging the lower bay, aliening the mooring fields, new pump out stations and one of my “Silly Ideas” made it through all the red tape and there will be a Marine Recycling in the Basin Marina, very similar to Dana Points, before the end of the year.

There are two other people that work in Harbor Resources. Shannon Levin now serves as Harbor Supervisor and Lisa Walters. The list of tasks, these three are assigned with, would fill my column for the next two months. From my observations, over the last 5 years, have seen their task list grow and staff size shrink. Yea, I know there is a joke there, but these three are doing a fantastic job. I just get the feeling the whole Harbor Resources department is changed with the times is very approachable and accessible to the public.

For example lets just say some boat with the name of “Queen”, in my opinion, was exceeding the speed limit through the Sabot C3 fleet in front of the Lido Isle Yacht last summer. I placed a call into the Harbor Resources department and the very next day that boat had slowed down some and changed their route. Now these types of calls should go to Harbor Sheriff Department but the point I am trying to make is there are other options. So, if there is a boat that is being loud late at night and you can make out its name or description call the Harbor Department first and if the noise still has your hair up the next day you can always call the Harbor Resources department.

While I had Chris I wanted to ask him the difference between the Harbor Commission and The Tidelands Management Committee. Both are government bodies that focus on the Harbor and Chris and his staff attend both meetings. “The Harbor Commission works on obtaining feedback, advice for the City Council regarding on how the harbor should work, look and function” Chris explained. While The Tideland Management Committee is a sub committee of the City Council  and they control the budget. “That’s not to say that the council is ignoring the Harbor Commission” Chris quickly explained. For what it’s worth, from my seat, the Harbor Commission does need to feel some love for the City Council if they truly want quality feedback. Remember my silly idea did come from the Harbor Commission.

Last question for Chris was what can the public do for the Harbor Resource department?

“ Get involved, please attend the Harbor Commission meetings and please try to be patient with us this year during the lower bay dredging. This is a big project and we have not done this in awhile’ Chris said.

As a seat of my pants sailor, from what I can tell Chris Miller has a steady hand on the tiller and drives a straight course.

Sea ya

It looks to be a banner year!

By Len Bose

February 7, 2012 | 8:36 p.m.

By now I would assume that most of my readers have an Assn. of Orange Coast Yacht Clubs 2012 racing calendar and have targeted which events they plan to sail in this year.

There have been some format changes to a number of events that you should consider before the ink dries on your schedule for 2012.

Most of you have heard about the changes made to this year's Newport-to-Ensenada race on April 27-29.

This year's event has been moved to The Hotel Coral and Marina in Ensenada. That alone has deflated most of the participants' security concerns in crossing the border. Everything will be centered around The Coral, with the finish line being placed closer to the marina. Buses leaving from Newport Beach, Dana Point and San Diego will take people to the event and return them, with round-trip tickets costing $70 and one-way tickets costing $50.

That's a huge savings and the safest way to travel!

Participation has already reached last year's numbers, and the cruising class numbers are returning, along with sponsorship. This is going to be way too much fun!

Our harbor's next big event is the Newport High-Point Series, which consists of the following races: the American Legion Midwinter Regatta on Feb. 18 and 19; Balboa Yacht Club's 66 Series race on March 17; Newport Harbor Yacht Club's Ahmanson Cup Series on April 21 and 22; the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club and South Shore Yacht Club's Gil Knudson Series on July 14; and the NOSA Argosy Regatta on Aug. 18 and 19.

The big change to the High-Point Series this year is the change of format in the Ahmanson Cup Series. NHYC Fleet Capt. Robert Kinney and the Race Council have come up with a brilliant idea to return the event more toward its original format, which ultimately will increase activity throughout the harbor. The first two races of the series will be a random leg in a pursuit format, and the last race of the series will be on May 5.

The first part of the Ahmason will be a perfect warm-up for the Ensenada race.

The other events I plan to attend this year are the BYC 66 Series and BCYC Angelman Series. Both yacht clubs are going the extra mile in supporting our harbor's PHRF racing and it's looking to be a banner year.

BCYC is also planning an islands race for June 8 that will go around Santa Barbara Island and Catalina Island. Go to my blog at http://lenboseyachts.blogspot.com and check out the BCYC promo for the Island Race. It's classic!

I also plan to be active in the Harbor 20 fleet this year, and will be running with one of my silly ideas starting at the time change this March on Wednesday nights. The idea is an informal team race series for the Harbor 20 owners, yacht clubs, high school and college teams.

Peter Haynes and I are working on the format on how to make this work. The whole idea is to encourage people ages 23 to 30 to stay active in sailing and our local yacht clubs.

Who knows — if this catches on, maybe we can even get one of our local yacht clubs invited to the NHYC Baldwin Cup.

Sea ya!

LEN BOSE is an experienced boater, yacht broker and boating columnist.

Newport Beach Beneteau First 30

“Its TIME to make the Dealer an OFFER!”

If you are like me you have spent many hours racing around our local islands with the dream of someday racing double or single-handed in a Mini 6.5, Open 40, 50. Then reality sets in, I can’t just pack up leave the wife and kids at home and head over to Europe for a two-year campaign.

You continue to watch the Mini Transat and other Open events and look for ways to purchase a boat and bring it to the West Coast. The cost of shipping blows the equation out of the water and you notice the open boats have a hard time sailing to their rating. Next thing that happens is your kids come up to you and ask when is the next time we can go to Catalina?

Is this just me or is it you also?

Don’t look now but Beneteau has done it again by providing a boat that can race and when you get to your destination you want to stay on the boat. With the help of Juan K design you can now complete your dreams by sailing an open style boat and have the interior where the crew/family wants to spend the weekend on the boat. I like to use the example: While talking with your spouse, the boat will be referred to as “Our Boat” rather than “Your Boat”.

If you have the same dream as me, give me a call and we will set up a viewing of the First 30.

Len Bose(714) 916-0200