By LEN BOSE
I received an invitation from Newport Beach Harbormaster Paul Blank to go onto the harbor in a patrol boat to review the objectives and accomplishments of the harbor department. We meet on a cold damp early Thursday afternoon pushing off the dock for our two-hour tour. I recorded our conversation, and after reviewing it I am amazed and overwhelmed by the progress Harbormaster Blank and his team have achieved.
I found this simple description of the duties of the Newport Beach Harbor Department on their website. “The Harbor Department is responsible for many of the harbor-related programs and services in the City of Newport Beach (City). As the ‘ambassadors’ of the harbor, our team conducts daily harbor patrols and provides assistance and services to our community and visitors. Our team is entrusted with educating the community and coordinating the use of our anchorages and mooring fields. The Harbor Department also manages the City’s guest marina, Marina Park, renting available slip space and moorings.”
Just entering the Harbormaster office had me silenced because of all the activity around me. You might recall, I worked at Marina Park as an assistant dockmaster two days a week for two years. At that time, we had two people in the office; now, my rough estimate was 12 people just in the office, all focused on their assigned tasks.
During our two-hour cruise, Blank and I talked about many harbor topics, sailing, and food recipes. I am going to leave out the sailing and recipes by submerging ourselves with the work at hand. Our first topic was team training from boat handling and mooring access which is helping boaters get on and off their moorings from their patrol boats to learn how to maneuver larger sail and power boats on and off moorings. There is first aid training, along with incident command standards “ICS” for emergency training that everyone on the team must complete and renew every other year. There is training with the Newport Beach Police Department disaster services with field exercises. Blank’s team will be participating in their own field exercise with an unscheduled spill response where the patrol boats will meet up with the spill trailer and deploy the spill capture booms. I have to assume we missed more than one training program to talk about these topics I inquired about.
Moorings: What should boaters do if the weather is uncooperative and it’s blowing “Dogs off the chains,” which is a term for a high wind advisory? With the Harbor Department operating hours between 8 a.m.-6 p.m., there is a time a boater might need assistance returning to their mooring. Should you find yourself in this situation, you can dock at Marina Park, a public dock, or at one of the end ties at Basin Marina. Remember to check in with the harbor department and let them know where your boat is and that you are ready to return to your mooring, weather permitting. Blank and I also discussed the proposed pilot program in the mooring C field, just east of Bay Island. With the City Council’s approval, the two furthest east mooring rows will be changed into one double row during the pilot test period. Both Blank and I are in favor of this pilot test, but we both have many friends that disagree with us. We touched on some of the concerns of many mooring permit holders, and we both want to make it clear that there are no changes to Title 17 and the transfer of mooring permits.
Dredging: The planned dredging of the lower bay is moving forward, hopefully starting in early summer. The backup equipment will not just be placed in one location for more than 60 days but rotated to different locations during the dredging process. There will be updates on the progress and location of the dredging equipment on the city’s website, or you can sign on to the email list.
Pump out Stations: Harbor hero George Hylkema came up with a design that separates items that would disable the pumps. Along with the city installing these separators, Harbormaster Blank is proud to report that all the pump-out stations are fully operational, and because of this, the pumps have never been accessed more.
Public Docks: Public docks require a huge consistent effort in monitoring with more than 10,000 inspections last year alone. This due diligence has been paying off because there have been better compliance. Also noteworthy is the new signage with a QR code taking you to a map with all the public restrooms, pump-out stations, and public docks. Blank’s team has polished the blue and white caps on all the public docks.
Live-A-Boards: The number of non-permitted live-a-boards has been drastically reduced with a very strong possibility that there are no longer any non-permitted live-a-boards in the harbor. At this time, the limit of 51 permit holders is full with a waiting list that could take close to three years to obtain. Each live-a-board must renew their permits by showing the vessel operable with a pump-out log.
There is so much more important information to cover, that you will have to return to my column at the same bat channel and same bat time in two weeks. Please come back because it just makes me full of pride at how clean and efficient our harbor is at this time.
Sea ya.
Editor’s Note: This is part one in a two-part story.
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Len Bose is a yachting enthusiast, yacht broker and harbor columnist for Stu News Newport.
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