The seafaring salesman

In a house that offers unobstructed views of the Back Bay, the most impressive sight comes when you enter the basement.

That’s where longtime Newport Beach resident David Fraser keeps his collection of thousands of nautical magazines and books, some of which date back more than 200 years.

To those who have bought or sold yachts, Fraser has been a recognizable figure throughout the past half-century.

The Spartanburg, S.C., native started out by working aboard a 185-foot wooden cargo schooner that carried lumber to the Northeast and coal back to the South.

While in high school, Fraser was paid about $55 a month to work seven-day, 85-hour weeks.

Fraser served three years in the Navy as a gunnery officer aboard Dauntless, a vessel he later would charter around the Mediterranean Sea.

After graduating with a physics degree from the Citadel, Fraser drove to Newport Beach, where a job at George Michaud’s yacht brokerage company was waiting for him.

“I’d been going to sea for years,” Fraser said. “I love sailing and rode aboard boats during the summer.”

Fraser was a yacht broker for Michaud for 10 years before starting his own company, Fraser Yachts Worldwide, in 1961.

A decade earlier, Fraser built a home that sits above Cliff Drive, about five blocks from Newport Harbor High School. He still marvels at the emptiness of the area during the early years in the neighborhood.

“When we moved here, you could shoot a cannon through this place after Labor Day,” he said.

And the cost of the property? Two thousand dollars for the lot and $13,000 for the house.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Fraser said the yachts he helped sell went for about $20,000. He advertised in yachting magazines and brokered deals for well-known vessels, such as Goodwill and Pioneer, that docked in Newport Harbor.

Private owners donated their vessels to the Navy during World War II and retrieved them after the war ended, he said. That’s when Fraser, a retired Navy commander who was a reservist for a few decades, found new homes for the ships.

He said he sold about a boat a week during the 1950s. Back then, $5,000 was a big sell for a 50-foot boat, according to Fraser. Now, they go for about $500,000, he said.

Fraser, who has owned different sailboats over the years, said one thing hasn’t changed about those who purchased yachts.

“No one other than the extremely wealthy had the money to buy the best of them,” he said.

Fraser Yachts Worldwide now has offices in Athens; Milan, Italy; and Seattle, among other cities. He has traveled across the world and has chartered a boat for his family in the Caribbean.

“My clients are all over the world,” he said. “My business was always a weekend business, and I’m still involved.”

For decades, Fraser was the president and owner of his company. It merged into Monaco Co. in 1992, when Fraser became one of eight major partners.

Last year, the company sold to a major yacht builder based in Italy.

Since the late 1940s, Fraser also has been active in the yacht insurance industry. He still works for Fraser Yacht Insurance, a company he started and has since given to his daughter, Jennie Fraser Heinke.

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20051218irnvi4nc(LA)David Fraser, a longtime yacht broker, built his home near Cliff Drive in Newport Beach.