Dredging up boating past

Yacht broker bought marshy area south of Balboa Island bridge and turned it into anchorage. Ed Richardson recently returned from a trip to Seattle, where he made a boat deal with the son of a man who had been his client in the 1960s.

Richardson, a Santa Ana Heights resident with roots in Newport Beach, has had his hands in all things boating for decades.

He moved with family from Hollywood to Balboa Island in 1927 at the age of 5 and immediately found a comfort zone in Newport Beach.

“It was a great place to be in the summer and an even better place to be in the winter, when all the [seasonal] residents went home,” Richardson said.

Richardson’s parents owned a boat shop called Yacht Club Garage on Balboa Island’s Marine Avenue. Ed Richardson, a Newport Harbor High School graduate, worked there in his early teenage years.

He said the family paid about $300 for the lot in 1927. The next year, they paid $700 for an adjacent lot.

“He [Richardson’s father, Angus] thought he got robbed on the deal,” Ed Richardson joked.

At the Yacht Club Garage, Angus Richardson specialized in boat repair. He stored boats in the winter and large cars in the summer. The garage later was renamed, and Angus Richardson eventually sold the land.

The Richardsons were neighbors of the Beek family, of Balboa Island Ferry fame.

In the early 1930s, Angus Richardson met with James I. Irvine about a not-so-sought after piece of land just south of the Balboa Island bridge on the mainland side. It was a marshy area that Angus Richardson coveted.

Irvine agreed to lease the land to him so that he could open the Richardson Yacht Anchorage. But first, Angus Richardson had some work to do. He built his own dredge and dug 100 feet deep in order to make the operation possible.

It was about a year-long project, Ed Richardson said. The family built a home on the property, which now is shared by two yacht clubs.

Ed Richardson said he enjoyed watching the federal government’s dredging project in the mid-1930s. He helped out at the Richardson Yacht Anchorage for years, beginning by washing and painting boats.

He has been a yacht broker for more than a half-century.

The Richardson Yacht Anchorage closed in 1968, when the lease with the Irvine Co. ended. Ed Richardson then turned his energy to boat brokering and dealing.

He met Chuck Hovey when they worked at the Balboa Marina, and the two have been working together in some capacity for about 35 years. They now work at Chuck Hovey Yachts Inc. at the Lido Yacht Anchorage.

Both said Newport Beach and the yacht brokerage industry have changed significantly.

“There are a lot more brokers and there is a lot more competition now,” said Hovey, who is president of the company. “Most of our business was handshakes then; we didn’t have to get attorneys involved.”

Added Richardson: “It used to be everyone knew everyone else. There were no strangers.”

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20060122itgy0enc(LA)Above, a view of the Richardson Yacht Anchorage, back when “business was handshakes.”