Young Salts : Tykes Grab the Tiller, Trim the Sails in a Summer Fleet of Sailing Classes

Virginia Serra, 7, alone in her 8-foot Sabot, hand on the tiller, eyes on the sail, glides across Newport Bay, oblivious to the 40-foot, 10-ton sailboat bearing down on her from astern.

“Turn around, Virginia, and check this out!” yells sailing instructor Anne Pernick, hovering nearby in a 12-foot runabout. “There’s a boat bearing down on you!”

Without taking her small hand from the tiller, Virginia twists around and gives the larger sailboat a cool glance of appraisal then instantly, almost imperceptibly, alters course, allowing the other boat to pass close behind her.

Pernick heaves a sigh of relief and Virginia sailed on to join the other members of Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club’s summer sailing class for children.

Close calls, collisions and capsized boats are all in a day’s work for Pernick and the dozens of other instructors--from Huntington Harbour to Dana Point--who spend each summer teaching hundreds of county children how to sail.

Since the early 1920s, when yachting began to flourish in Newport Harbor, children’s sailing has been a summer tradition in the county. Over the years, thousands of kids--many of whom have gone on to become world champion sailors--have started out like Virginia, who graduated this week from the club’s program for novices.

Many of these summer sailing school graduates go on to become sailing instructors themselves, such as Julie Norman, 18, who teaches at Bahia Corinthian, and her sister, Joann, 23, an instructor at the neighboring Balboa Yacht Club in Newport Beach.

Karen Bluel, 37, a science and music teacher at Santa Ana Valley High School who runs the junior sailing programs at Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club, recalls teaching a Norman first how to swim at age 4 and later how to sail.

“I’ve taught a lot of these instructors,” Bluel says during a recent overcast morning as 40 young sailors began rigging and launching 40 Sabots under the watchful eyes of their instructors. Bluel, a tough-minded woman who runs the summer sailing program with patience, discipline and wholehearted determination, remains calm amid the chaos of squealing kids, flapping sails and misplaced boats.

She has decided this morning to put her advanced students through the paces by drilling race starts. Armed with her ever-present bullhorn, wearing a yellow T-shirt, shorts and blue baseball cap and looking more like one of the kids than an instructor, Bluel takes to the water in a small, inflatable boat and sets the starting line. She is quickly joined on the water by 15 pint-size sailors.

Maneuvering her boat through harbor traffic while shouting individual instructions to each student, Bluel still sees and responds quickly, correcting sailing mistakes even before they happen. Her nonstop, amplified voice drifts out over the water:

“Scott, head up. Head up. Where are you going, Scott?”

“Watch your sail, Jimmy.”

“Kelly, you better tack.”

“Jason, there is plenty of wind to get you out of there. Watch your sail. It’s luffing.”

“Melie, you’re on port tack. You just fouled Ryan.”

“Ryan, don’t roll tack until your sail luffs.”

“John! John! Watch out! Don’t hit him!”

“No collisions. I don’t want any collisions.”

“Katie, you’re looking for trouble. Don’t barge the line.”

On a busy summer day in Newport Harbor, up to 300 young sailors are on the water in a variety of classes being offered by the harbor’s eight yacht clubs, the Newport Beach Parks, Beaches and Recreation Department, UC Irvine and the Orange County Sea Scouts.

In Dana Point, dozens of other children learn to sail through the two yacht clubs there and through the Dana Point Harbor Youth Group Facility (which is part of the county’s Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department.)

And in Huntington Harbour, more than 30 children just completed the summer sailing school sponsored by the Huntington Harbour Yacht Club.

Most young, aspiring sailors living anywhere in the county can find a summer sailing class to match their age, ability and pocketbook. The youngster’s family does not have to belong to a yacht club; most yacht club classes are open to the public at fees only slightly higher than those for members.

“In our classes this summer, only five of our 31 children were kids of club members,” says Marily Frick, co-chairman of the Huntington Harbour Yacht Club’s junior program. “Most of the kids were non-members.”

The six-week course, which just ended, cost $160 for non-members and $140 for members.

At the Lido Isle Yacht Club--where 74 sailors, some as young as 6, just completed a summer program--you don’t have to belong to the club, but you do have to live on Lido Isle, “or your grandmother does,” says Mary Ann Kerr, director of the junior sailing program.

To take Sea Scout sailing classes in Newport Beach--where 300 young sailors will finish a six-week program Sept. 2--you have to be a Scout, according to Mickey Hunter, program director. One-week “Webelo” day-camp programs for children ages 8 to 10 cost $50. Other individual classes, including basic sailing, cost $36.

Most yacht club programs require young sailors to provide their own boats, but other programs--such as the ones offered by Newport Beach, the Sea Scouts and the Dana Point Youth and Group Facility--provide boats.

Age requirements vary from program to program, but most prefer children who are at least 7 or 8. The minimum age for the Newport Beach programs is 9. The four-week Sabot classes cost $31.50. Private sailing lessons are available at $30 an hour.

At the Dana Point Harbor Youth and Group Facility, a five-week session (about 15 hours) for children 10 and older costs $36.

Children must know how to swim and must usually pass a swimming test. Some programs include swimming instruction.

The county’s most unusual yacht club, whose sailing program this summer includes about 40 youngsters, ages 7 to 16, is the Balboa Island Yacht Club--the county’s only yacht club exclusively for kids.

It costs just $10 to join the club, which is open to children ages 4 to 16. The club--founded in 1922 by the late Joseph and Carroll Beek, pioneers in the Newport Harbor area--just celebrated its 66th anniversary. Beek, who played a leading role in the development of Balboa Island, was the county’s first harbor master.

Club members, who number about 200, meet at the Beek family pier, between Turquoise and Topaz streets on Balboa Island, to take part in aquatic games and sports, including sailing. The pier, in front of the home of Seymour Beek, Joseph’s son, has been the club’s outdoor headquarters since its founding.

Seymour Beek--whose son, Jimmy, 8, is active in the club--was commodore of the club in 1946.

“There has been a Beek in the club most of the time,” Beek said. “The philosophy behind the club was that there were a lot of kids on Balboa Island who didn’t have very much to do. There was nothing organized. My father felt that if they had a little more structure in their lives, they could have more fun. The idea was for the kids to run the club themselves.”

The club boasts several second- and third-generation members.

Although not just “a learn-to-sail club,” Beek said, it has produced thousands of champion sailors, including America’s Cup winner Bill Ficker and Congressional Cup winner Henry Sprague.

According to the club’s current commodore, Chris Atencio, 16, there are about 40 active sailing members this year.

Eight-week summer sailing classes cost $150.

On a recent Friday afternoon, the club’s beginning sailors, mostly 7 and 8 years old, tack across the channel in a brisk wind for a day at the Fun Zone.

Standing on the pier watching a lone yellow sail drift closer and closer to its goal on the far side of the harbor is Conrad Baumbartner, who had taken the day off from work to watch his daughter, Chase, 7, sail her Sabot.

“She has learned a lot this summer,” he says, watching as his daughter tacks again. “But sometimes, when she hits the mark--or another boat--she gets frustrated, and then she cries.”

In another part of the harbor, sailing instructor Susie Christensen is doing her best to prevent a collision between 7-year-olds Virginia Serra and Whitney Wills.

“Whitney seems to be sailing along on a course all his own,” Christensen mutters to herself in frustration.

“Look at your sail, Whitney!” Christensen yells. “Now pull the tiller toward you. Now center it. Good.”

Without missing a beat, Christensen, who also teaches adult sailing through Orange Coast College, turns her attention to a boat behind her. “Casey, you’re just sitting in your boat eating an apple and your sail is luffing! Pull your sail in!

“At this age, they don’t have the longest attention spans,” Christensen says with a laugh. “I want to see them in driving school when they learn how to drive.”

And then with a hint of maternal pride and protectiveness, she adds: “Actually kids learn much faster than adults, because they aren’t afraid of anything. The kids just pick it up so easily. It’s tougher to teach adults.”

As the traffic in the bay grows thick around her, Christensen sits back calmly in the motor launch, puts her bullhorn to her lips and begins issuing orders like a drill sergeant: “Switch sides, Rhett. Now tack. Face your sail. Tiller in the middle. Head towards the mark, you guys. Great start, Chelsea. I’m talking beautiful. Best start in the world.”

As Christensen watches her class, which calls itself “Susie’s Shreddin’ Team,” sails alongside Anne Pernick’s “Annie’s Army,” she sighs and says: “What a way to spend the summer.”