Boats, boats, boats

June Casagrande

See boats. Board boats. Build boats. Sail boats.

If that sounds like the kind of day that floats your boat, then

there’s no better place to be next weekend than the Newport Harbor

Nautical Museum’s Heritage Regatta and Seaport Festival.

The event, now in its 12th year, combines a race of some of the

area’s most notable wooden boats with a day full of family

activities.

Curlew and Kelpie are just two of the famous classic schooners

that will participate in the noon race from Balboa Pier to Huntington

Beach and back.

Meanwhile, back at the museum, the parking lot will be overrun

from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with free exhibits, activities and

demonstrations. The International Knot-Tying Guild, the Ship Modelers

Assn., the Southern California Small Boat Messabout Society, the

Woodchuckers wood-carving club, the Newport Outrigger Canoe Club and

the Antique Outboard Motor Club are just some of the organizations

that will have exhibits, live demonstrations, boat rides and hands-on

crafts workshops.

Children, for example, will be able to build their own milk carton

sailboats and then sail them in the water.

Families will get a sneak peek at the boats they will build for

the museum’s Family Boat Building Weekend, which takes place July 12

and 13.

To top it all off, there’s a luau dinner, which is the only part

of the festivities that isn’t free.

“What we’re trying to do here is to show that you can go to a

museum and actually have fun,” said Glenn Zagoren, executive director

of the museum. “Parents are always looking for ways to get kids into

more cultural things. It shouldn’t have to be painful. It should be

fun.”