The Harbor Report: The man who walks the docks

AMANTE takes the lead in the Newport Beach High Point Sreies

By Len Bose

September 26, 2014 | 4:44 p.m.

This week, I had the opportunity to catch up with Troy Heidemann, the new dock master at the Balboa Bay Club.

Heidemann has to have one of the best views I've ever seen from someone's office window. Right in the middle of the club, out on the end of the dock, rests his work place with almost a 300-degree view of the Lido channel.

This view is not necessarily new to Heidemann, who grew up in Newport Beach and has worked on the harbor most of his life. He met his wife, Deborah, during a Thursday night beer can race and now has a daughter, Rachel, and a son, Joshua, who are all very active on our harbor.

New BBC Dock Master Troy Heidemann

As dock master at the club, he spends his time working with maintenance crews, boat owners and captains while keeping the docks safe and in order. With over 150 slips at the resort, which appears to be full at this time, his day goes by fast.

I was surprised to learn that the club is open to the public. For some reason, I always thought you had to be a member, but anyone can bring a Duffy to the guest dock and go on up and have breakfast, lunch or dinner at the Waterline restaurant or just watch the sunset from the A&Q Kitchen + Bar. The guest docks can hold up to 10 Duffys and are only available by first-come-first-served availability.

I also learned that if you want to bring your boat in and stay for a couple days or weeks, there are sub-lessees available to the public. Pre-approval by the dock master is needed before arriving, and you would then be able to use all the features of the resort: dining, beach, pool, spa, cable TV and Internet hook up, weight room and Duffy rentals all at your disposal. I'm going to have try this myself as a staycation and tell my customers to do the same.

One must be a member of the club to become a permanent slip tenant. From my observations, the marina is very clean with good parking, dock carts and plenty of water underneath your boat to keep from grounding even in our king tides. The marina is about half an hour from the harbor entrance, and being that the federal channel runs in front of the club, this allows even mega-yachts to reach this fine resort.

If you are reading my column and it's Saturday, Sept. 27, you might consider getting into your Duffy and heading over to the resort for its OktoberFestival from 2 to 5 p.m. If you need more information, go to the resort's website at balboabayresort.com and look under the "Activities" link.

Now that I have gotten reacquainted with Heidemann, I'll hit him up for information and observations on the harbor's activities, from the holiday boat parades to visiting mega-yachts. From his vantage point, he will see everything going on in our harbor.

Speaking of what's going on, the Richley family, aboard their Choate 48 Amante, dominated last weekend's Ahmanson Cup sailed out of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club. Amante sailed in PHRF division 2, which had nine local boats all contending for this year's Newport Beach High Point Series. With this win, Amante has taken the lead away from Brian Dougherty and his J 105 Legacy. Following in a close third place is Roy Jones' J 133 Tango.

The next race in the high point series is the 14 Mile bank race on Oct. 4. Any of these three boats can take this year's series, although I'd have to give the advantage to Tango because of the normal tight reach home from the 14-mile bank. Amante and Legacy are two of our harbor's best-sailed boats, and the race will be very close; stay tuned by checking out my blog site at lenboseyachts.blogspot.com.

2007 22' Cuddy asking $39,500

I thought I'd give myself a little plug before I go. I have a long waiting list of prospective brokerage Duffy buyers. If you are considering selling your Duffy, please give me a call. Or if you are just wondering what your Duffy is selling for, go to boseyachts.blogspot.com and scroll down page to obtain the best comparable sales information available.

Sea ya.

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

The Harbor Report: Calling for comments on story boards

BCYC Club Championships            Photo courtesy of Joysailing.com

By Len Bose

September 19, 2014 | 6:26 p.m.

Summer is slowly coming to an end, and yet the harbor is as active as if it were June.

This weekend, you will notice the 36th annual Lido Boat Show in Lido Village. I had a chance to walk around the show this week, and a couple of thoughts came to mind. Inventory on late-model brokerage boats appears to be in high demand due to limited production over the last six years. The sailboats are back at the show, with large displays from Beneteau and Jeanneau, along with sailing catamarans. There is the normal amount of large boats, although the flagship of the show is the new 43-foot Hinckley Talaria power boat. If you are a yachtsman, you have to come and appreciate this work of art, as she is one good-looking vessel.

Two other boats that caught my eye were the two VanDutch 40s located on the south end of the show. What a perfect boat for Catalina. All boats are a compromise for your desired use, and for my use, this vessel comes very close to my dream boat. In my opinion, she might be missing eight feet of interior volume, and I have to wonder how she rides at anchorage with her hard chines forward. I wish the best to our local dealers and have a feeling they are entering the market at the right time. I recommend you go to the show and look for that hard-to-find, clean late-model boat and buy it. If I can speculate, these boats will hold their values for the next 10 years.

I also made time to attend this week's Tidelands Management Committee, where the topic was the Balboa Island Seawalls Replacement Project. Rather than go into great detail, I would like to refer you to the city's webpage, which you can find by Googling "Balboa Island Seawalls Replacement Project" and clicking on the top two links. What you might also notice while walking around the island are 30-some storyboards that were placed around the island this week. These will show you the height of the proposed seawall cap. The idea of the storyboard is to obtain your comments, which you can give by contacting seawalls@newportbeachca.gov.

Balboa Island Story Signs

While visiting the seawall website, take the time to read through the different options staff has provided the tidelands committee. While attending these meetings, citizen advisory member Jamshed Dastur always provides the most useful information to the committee, and if you would like to read what Dastur has to say, you can go to my blog at lenboseyachts.blogspot.com to read his comments and concerns. This issue is rather important to our harbor, so please take the time to research this topic and take a look at the story boards. If you would like more information on this topic and other harbor issues, make sure you attend the Harbor Commission Public Outreach harbor tour aboard a ferry on Saturday, Nov. 15. This event will be limited to 60 people on a first-come, first-serve basis the day of the event. A photo of the route is posted on my blog site.

BCYC Family Champions The Doran Family

It's been at least a month since I talked about sailing Harbor 20s, so hold onto your tillers — here it comes. This last weekend was the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club Championships, sailed in Harbor 20s provided by club members and fleet one members. A total of 14 boats was collected for this two-day event. On Saturday was the Family Championships, which is intended to bring out the club's membership to use the club; participants get to invite family members who would not normally attend a sailing event, and it's the perfect photo op day to last a lifetime. Sunday is the club championship, which is very competitive and always introduces the Harbor 20 to sailors who would not have an opportunity to sail this boat in a one-design format. BCYC has run this event for three years now and the participants, who don't own a H20, truly consider joining the fleet and or returning to the fleet. This year's Family Champion is the Doran family, and the new BCYC Club Champion is Erik Shampain.

Over the next two weekends, things will get rather serious out on the harbor as fleet one gets ready for its class and fleet championships on Oct. 4 and 5. Next weekend, Sept. 27 and 28, are the warmup regattas that are run by BCYC and Newport Harbor Yacht Club. Wish me luck.

Sea ya.

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

Jamshed Dastur Letters to the City

November 15th Harbor Tour Route

The 2014 Master Angler Billfish Tournament Rocked – Literally

High Angler  Jock Albright

The 33^rd Annual Balboa Angling Club’s Master Angler Billfish Tournament was held September 12^th and 13^th with challenging weather conditions, high winds and seas and the anglers really had to work for it!  This is the most prestigious and oldest marlin tournament on the west coast.

It all started with a Kick-Off Party on September 10^th held at the Tee Room in Newport Beach with a packed house!  Marlin had been caught since August 2^nd and the participants couldn’t wait to hit the water and were truly excited about this year’s tournament. 

The fishing started on Friday at 6:00 a.m. and the first fish was hooked up at 8:04 am and was released after tagging with the IGFA (International Game Fish Association) Satellite Tag for the Great Marlin Race.  This is the first time the Great Marlin Race is being tracked in Southern California waters.  During the tournament 2 tags were deployed and you can track their paths by going to http://www.igfa.org/Conserve/IGMR-Satellite-Tag-Tracks.aspx. 

All in all, the tournament was a great success for the Balboa Angling Club and the participants are ready to come back next year!

Here are the results:

2014 Master Angler Billfish Tournament

         

Clubs = 8              Boats = 49           Anglers = 193

24 Hook Ups       15 Releases

Total Fish            1^st Day                                     9 Released       

                                2^nd Day                                    6 Released       

High Club

        1^st                  Pescadores -  Team 1                     540 pts.

        2^nd                 Dana Angling Club – Team 1        480 pts.

        3^rd                  Tuna Club – Team 1                         390 pts.

High Boat            

        1^st                   Bounder                                              300 pts.

        2^nd                  Kea Kai                                                 240 pts.

        3^rd                   Poco Loco                                            210 pts.

High Angler

          1^st                 Jock Albright                                      240 pts.               

          2^nd                Bill Buchannan                                   210 pts.

          3^rd                 Rod Halperin                                      180 pts.

          4^th                 Vick Sommers                                   180 pts.

          5^th                 Calen Offield                                      180 pts.

          6^th                 Drew Lawler                                       180 pts.

          7^th                 Bob Denault                                       180 pts.

          8^th                 Brian Fox                                             150 pts.

          9^th                 Alyson Gillett                                     150 pts.

        10^th                 Linda Crean                                        150 pts.

The winner of the Bob and Sally Kurz Perpetual Circle Hook Award is Vick Sommers on Sleeper

And in the Tuna Division Greg Taite of the S. S. Minnow took home 1^st place.

For more information on the Master Angler Billfish Tournament, the Great Marlin Race and Balboa Angling Club, please contact Amy Elliott at the Balboa Angling Club 949.673.6316 or via email at balboaanglingclub@sbcglobal.net

High Boat BOUNDER

High Club Pescadores

The Harbor Report: To jet-pack, or not to jet-pack

By Len Bose

September 12, 2014 | 5:16 p.m.

Boats are selling, and the marine industry people around town are moving like it's 2007. That's part of the reason why I was not able to submit a column last week.

While I was working in Monterey last week, Amy Elliott from the Balboa Angling Club called me, and it sounded like she had just won the lottery. "Eric Kim just caught a 50-pound wahoo. There are news trucks here and people everywhere. We have never seen a wahoo of this size this far north before. I'll send you over the information." Click. Wahoo are a warm-water fish that are normally found in Hawaii or Mexico. With the rising ocean temperatures, the fishing has been going off the scales this summer (that's a Len Bose pun, by the way).

This week, I attended the Harbor Commission meeting where the subject was water-propelled vessels or jet packs and the review of the commission's goals for 2014-15.

To me, the water-propelled vessels issue is a no-brainer, and one of my favorite people in town, Judy Cole, eloquently pointed out the obvious during public comments. "Jet packs" are no different than jet skis and should be kept to the same standards as any other vessel moving through the harbor. In other words, the operation of "jet packs" should be restricted inside the harbor, and the operators should only use them in the ocean.

I was very pleased to notice how the water-propelled ad hoc committee chairman took on this task. Bill "Skip" Kenney took the bull by the horns and gave an informative presentation on his progress. It's always good to see a new commissioner jump in, put his head down and get to work.

These are the proposed goals for the Harbor Commission for 2014-15:

1. The first objective is an improved Regional General Permit 54 (RGP54). This improved permit will streamline permitting for residents and marinas to dredge under their docks by combining the permits required by the Army Corps of Engineers, California Coastal Commission and State Water Resources Control Board. Without this city permit, this type of dredging is extremely complex and expensive for the individual and marina operator.

The major obstacle to having a usable dredging permit is eelgrass. One way to work past this obstacle is to develop the Newport shallow waters eelgrass mitigation plan. At last count, there are six government agencies that all have to sign off on this plan to make this permit more efficient and cost-effective. Harbor Commissioners Doug West, Duncan McIntosh and Brad Avery, along with Harbor Resources Manager Chris Miller, have been working on this project for more than two years now. They have worked their way through every agency other than the Coastal Commission, which will be reviewing this and hopefully coming to a decision by the first of next year.

2. Development of recommendations for the best public use of the Lower Castaways. This objective has been assigned to Commissioners David Girling and Avery. Chairing this objective is Girling and, from my observations, he is staying on task and has made good progress, receiving help from the city manager, council member Nancy Gardner and the Parks, Beaches & Recreation Commission.

3. Bulkhead and pierhead lines in conjunction with current vessel overhang regulations. Commissioners McIntosh and Joe Stapleton have this task. It was commented that this task is too broad in scope and should be focused on vessel overhang.

4. Strengthen the Harbor Commission's public outreach. Commissioners Paul Blank, Girling and Avery have this task. Blank is chairing and, as always, doing an outstanding job. Make sure you mark your calendars for the Public Outreach Harbor Tour aboard a ferry. It will be Saturday, Nov. 15.

Other topics being considered are marine code enforcement, alternative anchorages, water taxis and floating docks.

I'd like to give it up for Miller and Harbor Resources Supervisor Shannon Levin. From my observation point, both of these two are stepping up and walking that extra mile for our harbor.

Remember, "it's up to you" on how you want our harbor to look and run. This is the best time of year to get involved. Make a note to attend the next month's commission meeting and Sept. 17 Tidelands Management Committee meeting.

Sea ya.