Riverboat awaits buyer -- or it’s sunk

The clock is ticking for the Pride of Newport, the riverboat that’s housed the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum for the last decade.

The boat will be sold or scrapped, possibly by Dec. 31, as the museum moves to its permanent home at the Balboa Fun Zone. In the meantime, the museum’s permanent collection remains on display, and officials are offering the boat for rental as a holiday party venue.

The museum bought the Fun Zone site in 2005 and is on the verge of opening a portion of the new facility. It will eventually be a building with vaulted ceilings and about 6,700 square feet of exhibits.

The boat, formerly called the Reuben E. Lee, is more than 40 years old and is not seaworthy, but officials learned this week it could safely be towed from its spot in the harbor near West Coast Highway and Dover Drive, museum trustee David La Montagne said. That makes a sale more likely.

“There’s a lot of interest, and there’s been a lot of offers, but there’s nothing firm yet,” he said.

The boat’s sale price is $195,000, trimmed by $100,000 to encourage buyers, museum executive director David Muller said.

“The $195,000 is the starting point, but frankly we’re really flexible,” he said. “The goal is to sell it so we don’t have to dismantle it.”

Muller said he hopes to have the nautical museum’s paraphernalia off the boat by Dec. 31. The museum’s Fun Zone preview center awaits only city permits to open to the public, and Muller wants to be established there in time for the Christmas boat parade so people will become familiar with the new location.

If the boat doesn’t sell, La Montagne said, “Plan B would be basically to tow it out of the harbor, probably down to Ensenada or San Diego to a shipyard of some sort, and have the boat dismantled and sold off as scrap.”

Interested parties have considered using the boat as a hotel, executive suites and someone even wanted to truck it inland to turn it into a restaurant, he said.

But with about a month and a half left before the boat leaves, he said, “If somebody really wants to get in on it, it is the last chance before we take it away. That’s the bottom line.”

Through Dec. 31, several areas of the boat and the museum preview center can be rented for events. For information, call (949) 675-8915 or e-mail Nancy Shoemate at nancy@nhmn.org.