Brains of the boatyard

Paul Clinton

Gordon “Gordie” Rorick never finds himself at a loss for words when

talking about working in the Balboa Boat Yard.

A jack-of-all-trades, Rorick has spent more than 30 years at the yard,

so he has no trouble tossing off a crisply remembered anecdote. He

bubbles with excitement when he talks about the colorful former owner,

“Blackie” Gadarian.

“He was a very crusty old guy,” Rorick said. “If someone came up to

the dock, he’d tell them to leave. If they didn’t, he’d push their boat

off the dock.”

There were two activities Gadarian prohibited at the boatyard --

smoking and spitting.

Gadarian nearly electrocuted himself once, when he ran a crane into

some electrical lines.

He painted the entire yard with coats of orange and black to give the

place an aura of Halloween.

“He did it to irritate people,” Rorick said. “He loved to irritate

people.”

During his long tenure, Rorick has seen three owners come and go. The

yard’s fourth, and current owner, is Al Lewis.

Working on boats is a joy for Rorick. It always has been since he was

a child poking around his father’s boat yard in the 1930s.

Rorick, 67, even tried to retire from the yard a few years ago. But it

didn’t take. He was back to work after less than a year.

He can rattle off a mind-numbing list of duties he has learned to

perform over his history at the yard. He can repair prop shafts, paint

hulls, build cabinets and install sonar and other electrical equipment.

His specialty, he says, is in the woodcraft and other detail work that

can give boats a touch of personality.

Rorick also helps to haul the boats -- lift them out of the water for

hull repairs.

In the 1970s, he worked on the 1979 movie “Love and Bullets,” parts of

which were filmed in Newport Harbor. The movie starred Charles Bronson,

Jill Ireland and Rod Steiger.

In the film, Rorick piloted a tugboat that pushed around a boat shell

that was exploded near Bay Island in the film’s climax.