The Harbor Report: Cheer on our female sailors

I took another bay cruise this week and checked in with more of my friends from around the harbor.

The main event this week is being held at the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club, which is hosting this year’s U.S. Junior Women’s Doublehanded Championship, which involve club 420 sailboats. Thirty-nine teams from around the country will be arriving at BCYC this Saturday afternoon, then participating in sailing clinics and practicing Sunday and Monday.

The racing starts Tuesday and goes through Thursday and will be sailed in the vicinity of the Balboa Pier. This is a big event with most of our country’s top junior sailors competing for the US Sailings Ida Lewis Trophy.

The call for “all hands on deck” has been answered by most BCYC members. They are volunteering for housing, race committee, fundraising, boat launching and support boats. My good friend Mary Bacon is the event chair, and when she told me about this event over a year ago, I knew I had better step up and do my part.

One of the first calls for volunteering was for housing. I placed my family’s home on the list, and after passing all the US Sailing security checks, it appears we will have a team from San Diego staying at our home this week. In a little side note, this Saturday is my son Andrew’s 14th birthday, and when he asked me what I was getting him for his birthday, I told him about our guests. His face turned three shades of red. His reaction was priceless. And for one of the first times in his life, I made him speechless. I’ve also volunteered for boat launching and race committee duties and will be at the club for most of the week.

Next, I checked in with Amy Elliott, at the Balboa Angling Club, and she told me about the Adopt-A-Fish Program to fund the white seabass grow-out pens in Newport Beach. The pens had received a number of generous donations over the past few years and those funds have nearly been depleted. In an effort to keep this very successful program running, the club is asking for you to adopt a fish.

According to the club’s news release, “Each fish has a chip inserted into its cheek so that when the stock is released, they can be tracked through the collection of fish heads caught by fishermen and returned to Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute’s Mission Bay facility in San Diego.”

This could be kind of a fun bet to participate in with your friends from around the harbor. Go join the Balboa Angling Club’s Adopt-A-Fish and then start a type of pool based on whose fish lives the longest or the shortest. All money would go directly into the fund, and remember, your donation is 100% tax deductible.

I then stopped by this week’s Tidelands Management Committee meeting and learned about a number of interesting tidbits. Applications for the Citizens Advisory Panel will be accepted in the very near future to assist the committee in accomplishing its purpose and responsibilities. This is a nonvoting advisor who serves at the pleasure of the committee.

While reviewing the Tidelands Capital Plan, replacing the city’s vessel waste pump stations was discussed. The city has replaced five of the pump-out stations, and they have been reported to work so well that users are pleasantly surprised to see how quickly that job got done.

The bulkhead, pierhead and project lines were also discussed at this meeting. I prefer not to bore you with the details. The bottom line is that the Harbor Commission will be looking into our harbor’s boat overhang policy.

One last note before I go this week: Mandy McDonnell has been hired to replace Joyce Ibbetson as the new UC Irvine boating director. I would just like to give Mandy a shout out of congratulations and look forward to working with her in making our harbor a better place.

Sea ya.

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