Showcase Vessel Will Soon Sail Its Final Harbor Lap

The signatures in Capt. Raul Medina’s logbooks tell the story of the Angelena.

Ichio Asukata, the mayor of Yokohama, Japan. Aung Su, Port of Rangoon, Burma. R. Ramachandran Nair, of the government of the state of Kerala, India. H. K. Shau of the Chinese Ministry of Economics. Fahad A. Asailau, Department of Health, Saudi Arabia.

The signatures belong to some of the thousands of visiting government officials, dignitaries and business executives who, since 1958, have been introduced to the Port of Los Angeles aboard the Angelena.

Nearly all have met Medina, who has captained the Angelena for three decades. And all have walked through the archway that reads: “Welcome Aboard. Thru this hatch pass the finest people in the world.”

But the black-hulled boat with the mahogany trim and fading red canvas deck chairs will see its last visitor before long. At the age of 30, the Angelena is being retired.

The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, saying the Angelena is on shaky sea legs, voted last week to replace the 42-foot wooden-hulled cabin cruiser with a larger and more modern vessel.

Port Executive Director Ezunial Burts said the port has spent $90,000 since 1983 repairing the Angelena--which is not to be confused with the Angelita, a privately owned boat that won a gold medal in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and was the flagship of the 1984 Olympics.

The tour boat suffers from a severe case of dry rot and needs a $50,000 overhaul, according to Burts.

But it also is a case of the Port of Los Angeles outgrowing the Angelena.

Port officials rely increasingly on the boat to showcase the bustling harbor, and a report by Burts complained that serving lunch aboard the Angelena is awkward, the cabin is too small to accommodate large groups, engine noise makes conversation difficult and “there is no opportunity for private discussion, which inhibits marketing activity.”

The commissioners instructed port officials to seek bids on a used fiberglass boat between 55 and 65 feet long and with a price tag between $300,000 and $400,000. The replacement boat, which could be purchased as early as May, would seat between 50 and 60. The Angelena seats 30.

Port officials estimate that designing and building a new boat would cost at least $1 million, which a majority of the commissioners said is too expensive. But one of the five members--former boat builder Robert Rados--argued that “Worldport LA,” as port officials call their facility, ought to have such a tour boat.

“Other ports throughout the United States and foreign countries have much larger vessels to take out people,” Rados said. “By getting some type of used boat, we’re still not going to get what we really want.”

In fact, port agencies in New York and New Jersey, Boston, Seattle, Tacoma, Oakland and Long Beach do not own tour boats. Some, like Long Beach, charter vessels on occasion.

The Port of New York-New Jersey, which is the nation’s largest port (Los Angeles is second) offers its visitors helicopter tours. The Port of Boston gives tours on one of its fireboats, although a spokeswoman said some trips have been a little tricky when “they have dignitaries out in the vessel and the vessel has been called to a fire.”

Officials say harbor tours are an important sales tool at the Port of Los Angeles, which handled 55 million tons of cargo during fiscal year 1987--up from 35 million tons in 1977.

From land, they say, there is no way for visitors to get close views of ships like the Rio Frio unloading boxes of Chiquita bananas onto conveyor belts, or the Pearl Ace depositing shiny new Nissan cars onto Terminal Island.

“If we were to bring you in by car,” said Lee Zitko, chief of advertising and marketing, “all you would see is the backs of sheds and fences.”

Indeed, Medina has noted that “everything has grown here except the Angelena.”

Monday morning, the captain recalled with fondness the time he gave a tour to a dying child whose last wish was to see the Pacific Ocean, and the time jurors in the Charles Manson murder trial, tired of being sequestered, were sent aboard the Angelena for a break.

Port officials say they do not know what will become of the Angelena once another boat is purchased. Medina, who operates the Angelena with only one crew member, is eager to captain a more modern boat. But he said he has one wish for the vessel that he knows “every inch of.”

“Wherever she goes, she gets a good home.”