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The Harbor Report: Calling for comments on story boards

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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.

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.

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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.

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