Sailors hope for dredging soon

With the yacht racing season coming into full swing, yacht club officials and sailors alike applaud any efforts to get Newport Harbor dredged sooner rather than later.

“If and when it happens, it’ll be great,” said Jennifer Lancaster, yacht racing director for the Newport Harbor Yacht Club. “It’s just hospitality issues we’re facing. It’ll make everyone happier.”

As sediment from the hills of the Back Bay, Irvine and beyond flow into the waters, over time they accumulate and raise the harbor floor. It’s come to the point, yacht club officials said, that large boats with larger keels jutting toward the harbor floor can’t enter the harbor, or risk running aground.

“Any boats 50 feet or larger, we have to do what we can, look at the tides, maybe we have to do some shuffling around with our members,” Lancaster said.

Dennis Rosene, who owns the 40-foot Radical Departure, ran aground near Collins Avenue on Balboa Island last month during a race.

He was leading the pack when they passed the street’s race marker and hit the shallow part of the harbor, he said. Many said that when the tides are low in the harbor, homeowners will see the boats resting in mud or the boats leaning to the side as the keel hits ground.

“You’ll see all the boats that are aground all over the place, all the people who have boats on slips can’t get them in or out,” Rosene said. “This is the worst it’s been in the last 20 years.”

Orange County Sheriff Harbor Patrol officials said they have to help at least two or three boats a month that run aground, typically near the Newport Dunes area.

“I wouldn’t even want to try going over there,” Rosene said.

Until there is dredging, sailors will have to continue making adjustments. Before many regattas, some yachts will have to keep slips in Long Beach’s harbor, which can handle the larger keels, said Paul DeCapua, race chairman for the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club.

“It takes away from the ambience and thrill of racing,” he said. “I’ve been involved in racing for 15 years, and almost every year, I can think of a situation where someone hasn’t gone out to race because it’s sitting in the mud, or where it runs aground.”

Newport Beach city officials are looking to get federal funding for dredging the harbor. City Councilwoman Leslie Daigle and City Manager Dave Kiff traveled to Washington D.C. earlier this month to request funding. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) has submitted a request for $6 million to the congressional energy and water development committee, the first step toward federal funding.