Schooner Row

[Jay Greer]

Here is a shot taken of Schooner Row in Newport Beach Ca back in 1948.
Some of the famous boats that can be seen here are:
"Goodwill, Puritan, Vega and Lucky Star". Schooner row was located on the property that became the Balboa Bay Club. Lido Island is across the bay from it. There were a lot of houses there back then.
Sorry, about the small size, the picture is as large as I could make it.
Jay

[Daniel Noyes]

is one of those schooners, 2nd from rt Coronet or was she in Gloucester by then?

I remember her hulk there in the 80's early 90's

[SchoonerRat]

WOW!!

Some would say that Newport today is an improvement over Newport back then. I would not be one of them! I'd be perfectly happy just to go back 30 years. I'm sorry I wasted many years of my youth sailing tupperware go-fast sortaboats.

[Jay Greer]

Me too Ratty, Thirty years ago when I drove down the road into Port Townsend it was like entering a time warp back to old Newport Beach. I pray that the good city planners do not do what was done to old Newport here! In my opinion, the only place on the coast so far that has been done right and with sensitivity is Crystal Cove.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfxK70D3CsE
Jay

[Jay Greer]

One reason I write on this forum is to share those things that seem to be worthwhile so far as saving things that once brought joy to many of us in the past!
One does not always need a brass marching band to bring things that warm the heart and mind. It is often the simplicity of human spirit and creativity, things that are fashioned by hand and mind that bring that which is worth preserving!
Jay

[SchoonerRat]

I don't think Port Townsend is in any immediate danger. You've got the weather up there to keep the riff-raff away. It's the only thing stopping me. Crystal Cove was in a lot of trouble a while back. I'm glad that cooler heads prevailed. I'm also quite fond of Seal Beach. This small town just south of Long Beach has managed to progress enough to keep the city viable but yet retain much of the charm that attracted me in my youth. Huntington Beach, on the other hand...........Surf City is DEAD!!

[Jay Greer]

My Dad ran the O.B. pharmacy on the corner of Main & Coast Hiway in HB in the late 40's I remember the horse collars for the delivery wagon that still hung on the cellar wall.
When I was a kid, Dad used to take me to the lagoon at Seal Beach to fish for scollops. He had a rig that looked like a leaf rake that was made out of wire and was attached to a surf pole. Dad would cast it out, when the tide was right, and reel it back in. The scollops would hang on to the bent wire tines.
Those days are now gone as a result of progress.
Jay

[Jay Greer]

is one of those schooners, 2nd from rt Coronet or was she in Gloucester by then?

I remember her hulk there in the 80's early 90's

I believe you are thinking of the East Coast for Coronet.
Jay

[SchoonerRat]

You pre-date me by a few years. I think the lagoon that you speak of is now known as Anaheim Bay. The wetlands, just south of there, under-went a massive restoration about a decade ago. One other triumph of conservation over development. I was only ever aware of rock scallops around here. Dang, I had to expend a whole lot of energy hammering, prying, and sucking air out of a bottle to get mine. Sitting around waiting for the tide. It somehow just doesn't sound right.

[Garret]

You pre-date me by a few years. I think the lagoon that you speak of is now known as Anaheim Bay. The wetlands, just south of there, under-went a massive restoration about a decade ago. One other triumph of conservation over development. I was only ever aware of rock scallops around here. Dang, I had to expend a whole lot of energy hammering, prying, and sucking air out of a bottle to get mine. Sitting around waiting for the tide. It somehow just doesn't sound right.

Going OT - but the similarity is there. Clamming in Ellsworth ME in the 1970s was 2 people dig for 45 min. to get enough for 4 people to pig out. Nowadays, 2 people for 45 min. might get you enough for an appetizer for 2.

@ Jay: Thanks for these posts (OK - all of your posts) - they are wonderful!

[SchoonerRat]

I figure that OT is fine as long as the OP goes with you. So further OT we go.

My poison of choice was abalone. It's the only thing I can cook that comes out tasting like something you'd like to try again. I can remember free diving in Laguna and sometimes coming up with 2 legal abs on a single lungful. A decade or 2 later and you had to cross the great silver pond and empty a tank of air to get your limit. I think Catalina Island is now completely off limits to ab fishing.

Jay,

Sharing is, indeed, the reason for forums like this. Sharing is what brought me to a decade of schooner charters. How can one better share a beautiful schooner than to sail her through a crowded anchorage.

[Jay Greer]

Well now there then Ratty, words well said by you!
Jay

[Daniel Noyes]

I believe you are thinking of the East Coast for Coronet.
Jay

so true! though she did circumnavigate at one point, I looked up her history and aparently she was back on the east coast before the 1960's, so that white hulled plumb bowed beauty in your photo could not have been her.

[Daniel Noyes]

another full schooner breeze!

[Hwyl]

Thanks for the posts Jay. I remember seeing Puritan in Antigua in '79 or 80. I was amazed.

[Jay Greer]

I believe it was Sterling Hayden and Spike Africa that brought "Puritan" to the West Coast. She later hung on a mooring off of H Street on the Balboa Peninsula.
A book called "One More Summer" and the film of the same name told the tale. Smaller than Pioneer "Puritan" was a beauty! I think she had a steel hull.

The Schooner Fleet also anchored in the Lido Island Turning Basin for a while. "Volunteer" seen in the photo above, doesn't need a gollywobbler to look awesome! She was AWSOME!
Jay

[Jay Greer]

The most awsome restoration of a wooden boat I am aware of is the restoration of the 1888 Schooner "Coronet". It was taken on by Elizebeth Meyer when she had just finished her restoration project with the J boat "Endeavour". She founded IYRS and was highly involved with saving the "Coronet".
A very interesting film on the project can be found here!
Jay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaoiGP8I-yM

[SchoonerRat]

She didn't make it to Newport til the '50s so she was a little late to the party, but her green hull was a fixture there for decades. She has been re-born and is living a new life in Europe. Of all the boats that I've sailed, she is the one that grabbed my heart and didn't let go. Just like the mythical Kelpies who inspired her name.

[Hwyl]

?Did she have runners when you sailed her, Rat

[SchoonerRat]

Yes, runners and a permanent backstay out at the end of her boomkin (that she used to have). Although they weren't really necessary until the wind came up, I always set them. It gave me something to play with while my mate was tacking the jib and forestays'l.

[Hwyl]

Probably more important now that she has a gaff main.

[SchoonerRat]

Much more important now that she has no permanent backstay.

kelpie.jpg

[Gold Rock]

The most awsome restorations of a wooden boat I am aware of is the restoration of the 1888 Schooner "Coronet". It was taken on by Elizebeth Meyer when she had just finished her restoration project with the J boat "Endeavour". She founded IYRS and was highly involved with saving the "Coronet".
A very interesting film on the project can be found here!
Jay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaoiGP8I-yM

My fiancée and I were in Newport this last summer and got a tour of Coronet courtesy of one of the school directors. The work completed so far is magnificent; frames, deck beams, breast hook, knees, mast partners, most of the outside planking, and a good deal of the inside planking are done. Unfortunately, we learned that the project has been on hiatus since a good many months prior to our visit. A lull in funds available to keep things going is the problem. Confidence was good that things would get started again at some point in the not too distant future. I certainly hope so. I've worked, vis a vis my tenure with Port Townsend Foundry some years ago, with most of the principles involved in this project and know for certain that they can follow through on a project of this scope. Bob McNeil's last big project was the 126' Victorian era steam yacht Cangarda.

[Jay Greer]

In the same vein, "Kelpie" has had more restorations than the average boat. I believe it has been four or even five! She looks good in white but I miss the green!
Jay

[SchoonerRat]

Her last restoration was about as serious as you can get. She's racing the Med circuit now. Those Europeans are sticklers about restorations on our American classics. They must adhere to the boat's original plan as close as possible. In researching her, it was discovered that her stern shape was changed during one of her re-builds. She has now had a butt lift, a face lift, and a whole new wardrobe because none of her old clothes would fit on her new spars. Her fir decks have been replaced with teak, as she was originally. Boomkin is gone. Offset companionway is gone. Cockpit coamings are gone. Lifelines are gone. Coffee grinder is gone. About the only thing I recognize is her wheel, but the turk's head I tied on the kingspoke is gone.

[Jay Greer]

I've seen her through a new bow, two new sterns and then Wayne Ettle took the hog out of her and put in a new sheer clamp and a new shelf and clamp. Then came the new deck. Later she got a new set of bulwarks at Pete the Pirate's Yard. I carved her name in them forward. Then they replaced them again and one piece of the carvings is on Ernie Minney's mantle piece. Then, she was done over again for what we see now!
Jay

[Jay Greer]

HI BUNCH, HERE IS ANOTHER SHOT OF "SCHOONER ROW" FROM THE SOUTH.
Check out Newport Harbor HS on the upper left with it's bell tower and all the new roads! Cliff Drive is paved, but most of Kings Road isn’t. Dover Drive looks like a trail over there on the right. Ernie Minney posted this on Facebook in the "I grew up in Newport Beach BEFORE it was the OC” group.

Jay

[Gerarddm]

Sorta like the view Japanese bomber pilots had of battleship row in Pearl Harbor the morning of 07 Dec 41.

[SchoonerRat]

Schooner Row?

Looks like that guy leading the parade on the west didn't get the memo.

That's a great shot. I'm too young to remember Newport like that, but the Newport of my youth was a lot less developed than the Newport of now.

schoonerrow.jpg

[Jay Greer]

The marina on the right is Port Orange where fishermen could buy a ticket and catch a day or half day boat and fish off the coast. The boat with the clipper bow is the "Pioneer". Ahead of her is "Goodwill". The 135' "Goodwill" raced in the1953 Transpac. She was owned by Ralph Larabee and sank with the loss of all hands at night on the Sacramento Reef off the coast of Mexico. I believe the last to the right it the 75' "Idalia" The big boats later anchored in the basin off of the Lido Island Bridge. Later the city of Newport Beach, allegedly,
taxed the anchoring rights enough to cause the big boats to find other places to tie up.
Jay

[Bookmark]

I remember watching when Pioneer was towed out of the harbor. She was towed out stern-first as I recall.

Seeing that newer aerial photo with all that development on and around Harbor Island and Linda Isle brings back memories of a Pack 79 Cub Scout excursion to one of those two islands back when it was still just a pile of dredged sand. We called it Shark Island and had a sort of orienteering treasure hunt for a buried pirate chest. Jay's in-laws (the Lawrences) were there that day, since Anne's brother was in the same Cub Scout den as I. I think Anne must have been in the first grade back then!

Anybody else remember the enormous pile of shells a bit inland from The Dunes? I think they ground the shells up for paving or something. And there was a diatomaceous earth mining facility right around there if I remember correctly. That was back when the "Upper Bay" was just the "Back Bay", a marsh full of sting rays and beautiful Plumed Egrets. The developers managed to dredge the wetlands right before the regs came in that would have blocked it. There was a little one-lane bridge at the top of the Back Bay that would take you over to Aeronutronic. My dad used to use it to go back and forth to work (in the 1960 MGA he bought new).

[Jay Greer]

Ah Bookmark, Those were the days for sure. There was still a plethora of living sea creatures in the bay and shell fish in the shallows! There were Purple Hinge Pectin rock scallops as big as your hand that grew on every piling in the Bay. They had a chunk of meat the size of a silver dollar. They were the best I have ever eaten. Anne's brother is Jay Lawrence. He supplied the fotos I have printed here.
Jay

[Hugh MacD]

I hope you guys are documenting your recollection of those days somewhere..journals, essays...something. In another generation there won't be anybody around who has any inkling what the Bay looked like in the 50/60s, much less what it felt like subjectively. Your memories are important....please make sure they're passed on!

[Bookmark]

Good to know Jay L. is still around. Great guy. Dick and Robin Lawrence were two of the nicest people ever. I recall Mrs. Lawrence telling my mom one day that Mr. Lawrence had gotten a "criminal record" over the weekend. The family had gone on a beach picnic (Big Corona?) and Mrs. L. had stuck a can of beer in the hamper for Mr. L., forgetting that beer on the beach was a no-no for upstanding citizens as well as beach partiers. Beach patrol had no sense of humor.

Over the course of the sixties so much changed. The Back Bay cliffs we used to climb down (against our parents' orders) were terraced off for roads and houses, the dredging of the marshes moved along, the Irvine Ranch land across the bay had roof tops instead of cattle. No more combines harvesting barley. Remember the old Buffalo Ranch over there?

When the Irvine Company gave the state the land for the university they wanted it to be named for the family, but UC rules required that campuses be named for their locations. All of a sudden there was an imaginary place called Irvine, CA. I think they may have used the old Irvine Country Store on the ranch as the "city". Irvine, CA is certainly no imaginary place now!

[Bookmark]

Okay, a couple more random memories of cool things for kids back then.

Sailing a Sabot up and down below The Arches, hoping to see John Wayne puttering around on the Wild Goose. I actually did see him buying some lures at the drugstore one day. Anne Greer and my sister had a classmate whose family used to cruise down to Mexico with Wayne.

Standing in the playground at Mariners Elementary, looking up at Frank Tallman flying his Curtiss Pusher low and slow.

Riding my bike through the bean and tomato fields to the airport to see Tallman and Mantz's antique planes.

Driving with my dad through the groves to the South Coast Gun Club to spend a morning shooting my first .22 (which I am looking at as I type).

One of my favorite places was Grant's Surplus in Costa Mesa, full of WWII equipment perfect for our endless games of war. I actually still have a few items from there.