Historic swift boat docks in Newport Beach

PCF-816 isn’t like the other boats in Newport Harbor. No cushioned seating atop teak decks, no punny name emblazoned on its stern. But the vessel has presence and friends.

PCF-816 is a Vietnam-era U.S. Navy swift boat — compact, fast, lightweight and agile — visiting Newport Beach from its usual port in San Diego through the weekend to greet veterans at American Legion Post 291.

Bob Brown spent 1967 on a swift boat patrolling the South China Sea outside Qui Nhon. He was a 25-year-old lieutenant junior grade and in charge of a six-man crew, most of them younger than himself. He remembers how, for levity, he pulled up on much better-equipped destroyers in search of ice cream.

“We had about 3,500 kids that served on swift boats in Vietnam,” he said.

He kept all of his men alive, but noted that not every sailor returned.

He said the boat cruises in their honor.

The Navy introduced the aluminum, 50-foot-long PCF, or Patrol Craft Fast to Vietnam to interdict supplies bound for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Their use expanded to the rivers and canals for gunfire support, raids and troop insertion and evacuation.

This particular vessel was a training boat stateside before the U.S. donated it to Malta in 1971 for the newly formed republic’s navy. It never patrolled Vietnam’s coast or labyrinthine Mekong Delta.

But when Malta, a Mediterranean island nation, retired the boat in 2011, American men who knew its sister craft well, eagerly welcomed the aging boat home to restore it and put it into renewed service, giving naval history tours of San Diego Bay to civilians through the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Crew member David Bailey, left, and veteran Bob Brown, right, post the Swift Boat Sailors Assn. flag on the Vietnam-era PCF-816 swift boat upon arrival at the American Legion Post 291 dock in Newport Harbor on Tuesday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Occasionally, it makes longer hauls like the one this week. Skipper Fred Smallwood spent all of 1968 on a swift boat. As one of the few skippers with the current Coast Guard certification to take the craft into open water, he came to California from his home in Picayune, Miss., for Tuesday’s six-hour transit to the Legion’s guest dock. He reported good seas and clear skies.

David Bradley was an enlisted man, the navigator and second-in-command of his swift boat in 1967 and ’68. He was one of about 25 retirees from the Swift Boat Sailors Assn. to restore PCF-816, sanding and painting until it sang. These days, he narrates the tours.

Its three .50-caliber machine guns — one on the aft deck, two in the “tub” above the pilothouse — are silent dummies now. Its gunmetal grey is lighter than the tactical off-black Brown recalls of his boat, PCF-87. It still has the horsepower to rip into high-speed runs — not likely something visitors will see while it’s in Newport, but the public is invited to see it up close in its slip from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

American Legion Post 291 is at 215 15th St.