Adrift boat damages private dock

BALBOA PENINSULA — The dock belonging to Balboa Peninsula residents Gay Wassall-Kelly and her husband Bill Kelly was missing a big chunk Tuesday after it was damaged by a rental boat lodged underneath the pier.

The boat was one of three belonging to Balboa Boat Rentals let loose some time Monday night. It took four men to retrieve a second boat found under the ramp of the neighboring dock in the 400 block of Edgewater Avenue.

Dock workers were able to retrieve the boat in front of Wassall-Kelly’s house only after cutting a section of her dock away.

The third was more elusive: It was found Tuesday afternoon by Harbor Patrol deputies about 400 yards from the Balboa Pier in the ocean, said Newport Beach Police Sgt. Bill Hartford.

Wassall-Kelly woke up around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday to find the boat stuck in the sand and wedged under her dock. As the morning wore on, the tide rose, making the task of releasing the boat more difficult. As she and her husband made their way around the platform, boards kept splitting and cracking.

“I knew what was going to have to happen — I knew they were going to have to cut it out to get the boat out,” she said. Most of the windows at the helm of the vessel that was stuck under Wassall-Kelly’s dock were broken.

The outboard motor cover was missing from the ocean-bound boat, and it looked as if someone had tried to pull start the boat with a rope, Ralph Rodheim said. But he still considered damages minimal.

The boats were part of the Balboa Boat Rentals’ fleet of seven runabout boats, which are popular because they are relatively easy to use and are priced well, Penny Rodheim said.

The boat rental company has not had many incidents like this, the Rodheims said.

“There’s no room for vandalism or this type of behavior in Newport,” Ralph Rodheim said in a telephone interview. “It’s unfortunate, but a very rare occasion — that’s the good news…. People think, what’s the harm of pushing [boats] out; it’s no big deal. But as you can see the damage to private property and piers and the potential for other damage — it’s way more serious.”

Wassall-Kelly and her husband have been planning to get a new pier and dock after the end of the year and will just have to make theirs workable for now. Balboa Boat Rentals will most likely be paying for repairs to the pier and the boats through its liability insurance, Wassall-Kelly and the Rodheims said.

“They’re our friends. Their boat is wrecked…. We feel badly,” she said.

Newport Beach Police reported that overnight three of the boats were set adrift. They had no suspect information as of Tuesday afternoon, Hartford said, adding that boat thefts are rare.

“We were totally shocked,” Penny Rodheim said.