Trip of Dreams Begins With a Left Turn

At low tide Wednesday Dick and Cris Todd nosed their Bristol Channel Cutter, Chautauqua, out of Newport Harbor’s channel mouth and turned left down the coast. They are off on a 3 1/2-month cruise to Baja California, the culmination of nearly five years of planning and preparation.

Their ultimate destination, after rounding the tip of Baja at Cabo San Lucas, is to sail as far up the Sea of Cortez as time permits.

Their dream voyage began with the purchase of a bare hull from Sam Morse, a Costa Mesa boat builder, who produces the Bristol Channel Cutter, designed by Lyle Hess of Fullerton. They built the interior to their specifications and outfitted the vessel for the planned voyage.

The Bristol Channel Cutter measures 37 feet to the tip of her bowsprit, while her waterline length is 28 feet. Her beam is 10 feet. This makes a roomy space within for a cabin, and the Todds have used it well to create open, well-lighted and ventilated living quarters.

When my wife and I visited Chautauqua the other day to wish the Todds bon voyage , Cris informed me that I was sitting on the protein locker and my wife was sitting on the carbohydrate locker. Other ship’s stores were piled in cardboard boxes on the float waiting to be stowed in every available nook and cranny. The bottle of wine we’d brought was destined for the coolest part of the yacht--the bilge, where beer already was stored.

The voyage began and will end at the slip of Gingerlee Field, Cris’ mother and widow of the late, great sailor Hale Field. A watercolor of Hale hung on the forward bulkhead.

“Dad’s with us,” Cris said. “And now it’s home.”

Dick plans to return by heading 100 miles or more off the coast toward Hawaii, and then on a single tack sail to Newport Beach. He hopes to beat the usual problem that has beset sailing vessels for hundreds of years that attempt to sail directly up the coast. The prevailing northwesterly wind necessitates almost constant tacking to make headway.

Sailing Notes

Dennis Bedford, a biologist with the State Department of Fish and Game, has pulled off another first for his billfish monitoring project. Bedford’s group, working in conjunction with the National Marine Fisheries Service and DFG biologist Christine Pattison, pegged and tracked a swordfish for the first time in California waters.

The billfish was located and tagged by harpooner Bill Evans south of the Fourteen Mile Bank, 20 miles off Dana Point on Nov. 8. The fish traveled seven miles, as the crow flies, in the 24-hour period in which it was tracked. Bedford said he is interested in billfish behavior, as well as their vulnerability to all types of fishing gear, migration rates and residency time in Southern California waters.

The Newport Harbor Christmas Boat Parade of Lights will be Dec. 17-23, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. It is sponsored by the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce. The Symphony of Lights Boat Parade, sponsored by the Huntington Harbour Philharmonic Society, will be Dec. 13 and 14, from 4:30 to 9:45 p.m. in Huntington Harbour.

The newly founded Manny Guberman Race Committee Trophy of the Capistrano Bay Yacht Club was awarded to Bob Strang for his outstanding race management. The trophy memorializes the late Manny Guberman, a past CBYC director and ardent fisherman.

Sport and commercial fishermen are heralding the return of California sardines. Recent surveys by the DFG indicate an adult sardine population of at least 20,000 tons. At that level the law permits a small, controlled 1,000-ton fishery. The good news from the 1986 survey is a 45% larger sardine spawning area and indicates spawning is not limited to inshore areas.

DFG biologist Patricia Wolf said the data points to a strong recovery of the sardine source, which vanished after World War II. Heavy, virtually uncontrolled commercial fishing has been blamed on the sardine’s demise in California waters. Sport fishermen applaud the return because a strong showing of sardines, along with anchovies, means a viable food chain on which various sport fish feed. Sardine canneries are all but gone. When and if commercial harvesting quotas are raised, it may mean establishment of new canneries. Meanwhile, the commercial sardine fishery remains a small operation until the recovery of sardine in numbers is assured.