The Sea as Far as You Can See : Smooth Sailing for Nautical Museum, Buoyed by Expansion

On the sea-level deck of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum, which opened in August aboard the Pride of Newport sternwheeler--formerly the Reuben E. Lee Restaurant--there’s a whale fashioned from salt, a 1919 photo of a men’s bathing-beauty parade, a collection of ships in bottles and a photo of Jack Needham of England with his bottle in which a sailor is putting a model ship in a bottle.

That may sound hard to beat, but director Sheli O. Smith is trying. She assumed the museum’s helm in January.

On the museum’s Second Deck, which opened March 15, Smith has mounted an exhibition in the Grand Salon of maritime paintings by William A. Coulter and, in the Stern Gallery, a permanent display of Richard Steele’s collection of model ships. Steele, son of prominent Orange County arts patrons Harry and Grace Steele (whose foundation is a key Nautical Museum donor), died one week later.

The collection includes a behemoth (14 feet long, 900 pounds) model of the Australian passenger steamship S.S. Willochra and a 4-foot-tall model of a triple expansion engine, the workhorse of big ships in the first half of the 20th century. Also on display are two very exotic models--one made of highly detailed silver, the other called a “prisoner of war” model.

Smith talked about how the latter was made.

“The sailors would eat their dinner, save the bones, then whittle them down,” she explained. “The models are very accurate because sailors were making them. The rigging is done with hair. The sailor not only made the model out of what he had for dinner, he also went bald!”

Plans call for separate walls for yachts, clippers, naval vessels and the exotics to be completed within a year. Explanatory labels have not been affixed for all models yet.

The Coulter exhibition has been labeled with obvious affection. Visitors learn that many of Coulter’s works were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and that only a few canvases were saved by his daughter, Helen, during a Sausalito fire in 1919.

They also learn that a Coulter painting appears on a 1923 U.S. stamp; that in 1934 Coulter held his last exhibition, comprising 75 oil paintings completed after his 80th birthday; and that the Liberty Ship S.S. William A. Coulter was launched in his memory November 1943 and scrapped in the 1960s.

Smith, who has a doctorate in underwater archeology and has worked at nautical museums for 20 years, curated the show, which runs through July 15.

“This is the Coulter family collection, which makes this show a little different,” Smith said. “I’ve hung other artists’ shows before, where you go out and get the art from many different sources. This is only what the family owns.”

But, Smith noted, what the family owns may present a more intimate portrait of Coulter and show him to be a much richer individual than other shows she’s seen have indicated.

“This is their grandfather,” Smith said. “They talk about him singing, his music, his love of gardening. I’ve seen many exhibits of Coulter over the years, but it’s always just Coulter the artist. This show gives a much broader picture of the man.”

The Newport Gallery downstairs was moved lock, stock and bottle in June from the museum’s cramped quarters on Balboa Peninsula. That gallery alone equals the entire space of the old museum; with the opening of the second deck, gallery space has almost quadrupled.

The Newport Gallery will be redesigned next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the annual Newport-to-Ensenada sailboat race. “The galleries will remain thematic,” she said, “but not static.”

Also on the main deck are the Riverboat Cafe and a gift shop. The nautical theme, which extends throughout the ship, can provide a somewhat daunting experience for visitors of the men’s room near the entrance. Over the urinal hangs the front half of a shark, jaws agape. (Ichthyophiles can relax--it’s plastic.) Said Smith: “There’s a shark in the men’s room?”

* What: Newport Harbor Nautical Museum.

* When: Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

* Where: 151 E. Coast Highway, Newport Beach.

* Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to the MacArthur Boulevard or Jamboree Road exit and head south. Turn right on Pacific Coast (1) Highway. The museum is on the left.

* Wherewithal: FREE.

* Where to call: (714) 673-7863.