wooden boat: Boat festival widens horizon in 29th yearWooden Boat Enthusiasts Race off Newport
Thursday, July 13, 2006
By Coty Dolores Miranda
SEAL BEACH - Every yacht club has its source of pride - but for one Southern California club, it starts from the bottom up.
The 34-year-old Wooden Hull Yacht Club is home to some of the coast's finest and most recognizable sailboats.
On July 8, Wooden Hull YC's 15th annual Heritage Regatta brought handsome old and new wooden hull vessels to the waters off Newport Beach, impressing hundreds spectators on sea and land.
The First to Finish Audrey Nye Perpetual Award went to Bob Dodds and his Rhodes 40, Whisper; Thomas Cooper's Syrena took first in Class B sloops and Denton Porter's Herreshoff ketch, Patience, won the Class B ketch race.
The event also marked the Opening Day for Wooden Hull YC, formed in 1972. The club's members, with home berths from Santa Barbara to San Diego, were hosted by Balboa Yacht Club. Following the regatta, the vessels were open to public viewing.
The Wooden Hull YC Opening Day Reception and Heritage Regatta awards ceremony followed on the Balboa Yacht Club's Flag Deck.
"Our 15th annual Heritage Regatta and Opening Day Ceremonies is our favorite event and provides an opportunity to celebrate not only the heritage of our yachts, but the heritage of Newport Harbor and our shared passion for wooden hull yachts," said Wooden Hull YC Commodore Jerry Klein.
"Boats came from Marina del Rey to San Diego for the Heritage Regatta," said Staff Commodore and regatta co-chairman Alan Peterson. His own vessel - the Kettenburg K-40, Zephyrus, was delivered overnight by skipper Jack Peterson in time for the regatta. Though her home berth is Long Beach, she'd been in San Diego for the past few months participating in classic yacht regattas, said Peterson, who bought his first wooden hull boat and joined the club in 1996.
"I've always loved the heritage of classic wooden hull sailing vessels," Peterson said. "They sail differently. They feel different. There is an organic sense one experiences at the helm of a wooden hull as it sails through the water. There's something about the boats, each with many decades of experiences, memories and nostalgia attached. Wooden Hull YC is our connection for these experiences. It's where we gather as friends, share our boats and our techniques and our latest stories about what projects we have next. There are always projects on these boats - one is never finished."
It was 34 years ago that Clark Sweet and Ray Wallace first approached other wooden hull boat owners with the idea of beginning a club that would honor and promote traditional
wooden boats.
This was the decade (1970s) when fiberglass-hulled boats were making their way into Pacific Ocean racing circles, putting wooden vessels at a disadvantage. Within a short time, more than 100 wooden boat owners expressed interest and the Wooden Hull Owner's Association (WHOA) began. That same year, the WHOA's first race, from Newport to Dana Point, attracted 42 participants.
In 1991, the club voted to rename itself Wooden Hull Yacht Club.
Its membership roster reads like a who's who in Southern California wooden boats: the 70-foot gaff rigged cutter, Bloodhound, now plying the waters of Puerto Vallarta; the 1931 Fellows & Stevens 56-foot yawl Cheerio II; the 65-foot Kelpie - serving as this summer's substitute for Argus at the Newport Sea Base; the Alden 72-foot double top-masted schooner Dirigo II; and Tom Zetlmaier's Coast Rhodes 33 Lanakai, built in 1936 at South Coast Shipyard in Newport Beach.
Some members have hand-built their wooden-hulled vesels. Longtime member Woodson Woods, now living in Hawaii, spent six years building the 122-foot replica ship, Lynx, which now serves as the sail training vessel for the Lynx Educational Foundation. A newer Wooden Hull YC member, Thomas Kulp of Mission Viejo, also built his 24-foot Philip C. Boger-designed catboat, Jillian.
Although wooden vessels may seem to some a specter of the past, members like Peterson look to resurgence in interest for the classic beauties the vessels embody.
"I see our yacht club growing in the coming years - over the past couple years, we've reenergized our club, increased our membership and increased participation in our races," Peterson said. "We're a group of yacht owners who love wood, bronze, tools, varnish, paint and sometimes West System, and Wooden Hull YC provides our members the frequent opportunity to meet, greet and share stories."
For more information on Wooden Hull Yacht Club and its activities, visit its Web site at www.whyc.org.
Coty Dolores Miranda is a freelance maritime journalist who covers Southern California and Baja California, Mexico. She is a frequent contributor to The Log Newspaper.
