Yachting’s Icebreaker

The annual ritual begins at dawn with last-minute checks to the boats.

The newly varnished decks must be free of sea gull droppings. The chrome must be smudge-free. And the ships’ flags must be fully dressed and in their proper places.

On opening day of the yachting season today in Newport Harbor, and in harbors throughout the world, everything has got to be shipshape.

Opening day has a bit more meaning in Northeastern and European seaports, because it marks the moment the ice breaks in the harbors and the boats can return to the sea after a winter in dry storage.

Here, it is not the coming of spring and the return of boats to the water that is celebrated, but the ancient rites of the sport itself. And, despite its irrelevance, it is marked with great fervor.

Sailing is a venerable sport, rich in tradition. The first races took place hundreds of years ago among clipper ships charged with shuttling tea and spices between continents. The first to port was often rewarded by the buyers.

The ritual of opening day, which dates back more than 500 years, is merely an extension of the Old World flavor the sport has retained in modern times. And like all rituals, it is meant to hearten the old, inspire the young and remind yachtsmen from Newport Beach and Newport, R.I., from Havana to the Isle of Wight, of their place in the international fraternity of sailing.

“It’s a celebration of the Corinthian spirit,” said Stan Cochran, a rear commodore at the Balboa Yacht Club. The formality of opening day, he said, reinforces the values of respect and honor all sailors are expected to uphold.

To uphold respect for the ship, the vessels are scrubbed from bow to stern.

It’s the one day of the year the yacht club commodores don formal uniforms to inspect members’ ships and visitors from neighboring clubs are invited to climb aboard to perform their own informal investigations.

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To honor the forces of nature, an invocation is given to bless the racers. It usually includes a plea for strong, steady winds to fill their sails.

And in the name of fun, hundreds of boats will spill into Newport Harbor to inaugurate the season before the day concludes with dinner and dancing by the bay.

Local boaters say they love the pageantry, which includes blasting cannons and raising yacht club flags. They are aware it is such pomp and circumstance that makes them seem snobbish to the outside world, but they insist that just the opposite is true.

Contrary to the widely held image of yacht clubs as exclusive spots for the wealthy, yacht club members don’t necessarily own boats and fees are much more modest than many people might expect. Furthermore, many of the clubs subsidize dues for young members because it keeps them involved, said Dick Blatterman, commodore of the Balboa Yacht Club.

There is a requirement though: Members must know how to sail. Prestige in the club is based not on the size of the boat one owns, but one’s skill in sailing it.

“The sport transcends all age and income levels,” said Bill Ficker, an America’s Cup winner and Newport Harbor Yacht Club member. “On the water, a corporate president gets yelled at the same way an 8-year-old kid does.”

Ficker said he got a late start in boating. He made his first tack in a sailboat at the age of 10 when, on a summer visit to Balboa Island, his parents took him to the Balboa Yacht Club for lessons.

Though he gained fame for sailing the biggest boats in the world, he earned his reputation as a champion skipper sailing small sloops, no longer than 30 feet.

He never owned a vessel larger than 22 feet and most of his life, he never owned a boat at all.

Michael Kane, a South Shore Yacht Club staff commodore, said most clubs welcome people from all walks of life.

“We enjoy the camaraderie. The members are not affluent and they don’t necessarily have pristine boats,” he said. “They are just dedicated people.”

Still, boating isn’t stickball. Not anyone can play. And players are chosen, because memberships in yacht clubs are still by invitation.

Said Ficker: “A boat can be a very confining space. You want the people around you to be good shipmates.”

Those who race sailboats find it important to have highly skilled, dependable people who work well together because the wind and the sea are extremely unpredictable.

The vagaries of the ocean make sailors hang on to traditions because “you get tradition whenever you get into anything that is mysterious,” said Laurin Weiss, a writer for Santana magazine.

That is why sailors today still emulate the practices of successful sailors from generations past. Flying a country’s flag at a position lower than the top of the boat comes from the Romans. The Vikings who flew tribal flags, which later evolved into the practice of flying yacht club flags, called burgees.

And it was the seafaring Dutch who began the practice of Opening Day when the ice broke in their harbors, usually in May.

Though he doesn’t think of himself as much of a traditionalist, Brad Avery, a Newport Harbor Yacht Club member, intrinsically understands the beauty of the Opening Day.

“It’s like reality is suspended for a day,” said Avery. “To see the large gathering of beautiful boats in wonderful condition . . . it doesn’t get much better than that for me.”