Aquatic Center Buoyed by Funds

To see how much support the Newport Aquatic Center has, just check out the crowd ready to hit the water any morning about 6:15, center president David A. Grant said.

But the popularity of the 11-year-old center is causing trouble, making it fairly burst at the seams with the canoes, kayaks and rowing shells stored there.

So the center, which is open to the public and funded completely by members and benefactors, just completed a drive to raise $400,000 to double the size of its boathouse and add a classroom and offices. Construction begins Monday and is scheduled to last 14 weeks.

Grant said the center still needs about $50,000 to buy new boat hoists, overhaul the locker rooms and replace the carpet.

Although center officials encourage anyone interested in rowing, kayaking or canoeing to come there for classes or rentals, they focus on youth programs. They sponsor a high school rowing team with members throughout the county, and the Project Pride Canoe and Kayak Program lets students train at the center to gain discipline and confidence.

“The youth of our community has desperately needed a place where they could get on the water and learn about human-powered craft,” said Grant, former rowing coach and president of Orange Coast College.

Billy Whitford, the center’s executive director, rowed for Orange Coast College, and said the idea for the Aquatic Center came from those who wanted to row but weren’t on a college team.

“When you’re pre- or post-collegiate, how do you get access to the water, much less store something?” he said.

With help of a no-fee lease from the city for the center at 1 Whitecliffs Drive, on Newport’s Back Bay, center organizers formed a nonprofit corporation, weaved through the bureaucracies of 18 federal, state and local agencies, and gathered major donations.

“A lot of people don’t know the center exists,” Grant said, but in some ways that used to be OK.

“We had no place to put another boat,” he said. “Now we’re ready to say, ‘Here we are.’ People who want to take a chance and get out on the water and get entirely enthused about it, they’re welcome.”