Bound for history

Alex Coolman

It 1938, John Blaich was reading the Balboa Times when something

caught his eye.

“It was a contest,” the 81-year-old Corona del Mar resident recalled.

“You had to identify yachts.”

Blaich entered the contest, won, and came away $50 richer. He also

acquired a new hobby, learning about the details of boats, that would

stick with him for the rest of his life.

Now Blaich, who has been writing the Daily Pilot’s Monday column

“Yachts of Yesteryear” for the last 30 weeks, has put his knowledge

acquired from a life of loving yachts into a book that will go on sale

Tuesday.

“The Large Yachts of Newport Harbor Before World War II,” which Blaich

is publishing himself, documents a lost era of yachting in Newport Beach

and the changes that the war brought to some of the area’s most

impressive boats.

It’s a period, Blaich says, that hasn’t been captured in any great

detail by earlier writers.

“I suddenly realized,” he said, “that I was the last of the young

old-timers around here, so I thought I ought to put all this information

together.”

Blaich’s credentials for compiling such a work are formidable. After

growing up on the Balboa peninsula, he served on the USS Baltimore in the

Western Pacific.

His knowledge of things that go on in and around the water, said

Balboa Yacht Club rear commodore Josh Walker, is tough to beat.

“He’s a guy who knows these kinds of things,” Walker said. “He

understands the traditions. He’s a throwback to a time when we did things

just a certain way.”

Turning through the pages of Blaich’s book, which is illustrated with

a number of photographs, will offer the reader an awareness of the

transforming effects the advent of World War II had on some aspects of

Newport Beach life.

The harbor entrance was blocked off in 1941 because of concerns about

enemy activity, Blaich noted.

“They had a log boom across the harbor entrance. The only people who

could go out were the fishermen.”

All sailing was confined to the waters within the harbor.

But the war also affected the look of many boats.

The 138-foot yacht Paragon, for example, was converted to military use

by the Navy. The boat had its home port in Newport Harbor in 1939 and was

wrecked in the harbor entrance when the famous hurricane swept through in

Sept. 21 of that year.

But the boat was restored, turned into “PYC36” by the Navy and used

for antisubmarine patrols.

Another vessel, the 234-foot yacht Vida, the largest yacht to ever

enter Newport Harbor, metamorphosed into the USS Crystal and helped

defend Midway Island.

In addition to the boats that were remarkable because of their

military use, Blaich’s book features images of some of the vessels that

became famous for their celebrity owners.

Santana, the yacht Humphrey Bogart owned, is prominently featured in a

picture of the actor and Lauren Bacall.

Also featured is the Swift of Ipswich, a boat owned by actor James

Cagney’s brother Bill.

Proceeds from sales of the book will benefit the Newport Harbor

Nautical Museum. The book is available in the museum’s gift shop.