ON THE WATER -- A love from early on

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- Right around now, Brad Avery’s probably somewhere off

the Oregon coast. Last Thursday, the director of Orange Coast College’s

School of Sailing and Seamanship headed up to Vancouver Island to bring

his motor boat back to Newport Beach.

And last Tuesday, as he sat in his new office that overlooks Newport

Harbor, the passionate sailor said there’s nothing wrong with letting the

boat do most of the work once in a while.

“It’s pretty nice to just turn the [ignition] key and go,” he said,

laughing. “I like all kinds of boats.”

Avery, who grew up in Newport Beach and now gets to the school on West

Coast Highway in “four minutes if I make the light” from his Newport

Heights home, fell in love with all things nautical on his father’s

sailboat as a young kid.

For the past 20 years, he’s been involved with the school and has run

the sailing program for 15 years under different titles.

He’s eager to offer a nautical education for everyone who’s interested

-- whether it’s kids from Santa Ana who have never been on a boat or

wealthy people who want to learn how to operate their yachts.

The ocean, in his view, is Orange County’s biggest park.

“We’re an access point for knowledge on how to [explore] it,” he said.

With a fleet of a dozen 14-foot dinghies, six 30-foot shields, the

70-foot ketch “Bonaire” and the 65-foot floop “Alaska Eagle,” the

school’s able to offer something for sailors at every level of

experience.

To become a crew member on the “Alaska Eagle,” which is getting ready

for a yearlong trip around the Pacific Ocean, some experience might help.

“We like people to have intermediate skills,” Avery said, “so that

they know enough to be comfortable on the boat and know what’s going to

happen next. But they certainly don’t have to be experts.”

Avery, who said he spends about 60 days sailing each year, will join

the boat for the Tahiti to Easter Islands leg later this year and then

again on the Antarctica leg in 2002.

While he’s not spending as much time out at sea as he used to, he said

he’s struck a “very nice balance” between administering the $1 million a

year program and following his passion.

FYI

The school is looking for donations of nautical books for its

brand-new library that’s open to the public. Information: (949) 645-9412.