Pyewacket is more wind in OCC’s sails
With Roy Disney’s donation of a $7-million racing vessel, Pyewacket,
Orange Coast College’s School of Sailing and Seamanship officially
has left the shallow end behind and is now in deep water. Not that
the renowned program wasn’t already pretty close or pretty well
prepared to set sail for bigger adventures.
In the past few years, the school has been the beneficiary,
through the fundraising Orange Coast College Foundation, of several
notable gifts. In 2003, former Yugoslavian president and local
businessman Milan Panic gave the school his $2-million private motor
yacht. It allowed the school to start a program designed to teach
students about operating such large boats.
In May, the school landed another dream gift, courtesy of Marina
del Rey boat owner Jim Kilroy: the 80-foot racing vessel Kialoa III.
During the 1970s, the boat won numerous competitions and broke the
speed record in the 1975 Sydney to Hobart race.
It also claimed victories in transatlantic and transpacific races,
and it won the China Sea and the World Ocean championships.
Now, the college is the owner of more than $10 million in big
boats, including one of the most famous and successful racing yachts
in recent years -- Pyewacket. Just prior to its retirement to OCC,
the boat placed third in the Transpacific Yacht Race, better known as
the Transpac, and won the inaugural First Team Real Estate
Invitational Regatta, held in late May off Newport Beach.
The sky -- or perhaps the horizon -- now appears to be the limit
for the school of sailing. The experiences and training it can give
its students are unparalleled.
Perhaps the most amazing piece to this story is that Disney, the
nephew of the legendary Walt Disney, has agreed to pay the boat’s
operating costs, which amount to about $12,000 a month.
There’s simply nothing but clear skies and a hearty breeze to this
story. At the very least, it should draw the proper attention to the
gem of a school that OCC has built. At the most, is an America’s Cup
too much to ask?
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