Deserting her childhood digs

Mathis Winkler

As an Arizona desert child, sailing was a little out of the ordinary

for Catherine Malm.

“I did all those sort of traditional mountain desert things,” Malm

said. But her grandfather sailed and got her hooked early on.

She began lake sailing, entered her first race at 13 and began

following her passion as a student at Pomona College.

After meeting her husband, Jaime, during a regatta in Mission Bay,

Malm came to Newport Beach and ran the junior program at Balboa Yacht

Club. She then switched to an Internet company, where she did “boating

and sailing stuff.”

When the business went bankrupt, the Boy Scouts Sea Base didn’t take

long to recruit her as its program director. She’s been working there

since last September.

“Because I have such a passion for [sailing], I want to share it,” she

said, adding that she’s responsible to develop programs that open the

base up to outside groups.

“Many people think it’s still only boy scouts, while it’s open to all

boys and girls,” she said, adding that about two-thirds of the base’s

28,000 annual users are kids.

An ambitious expansion project, which already received city approval

and will now go before the California Coastal Commission, will hopefully

allow the base to serve up to 60,000 people per year within a decade,

Malm said.

“The Sea Base is really in transition from a Boy Scout day camp to

becoming an aquatics institute parallel to what Orange Coast College does

-- but with youth,” she said. “We’ve outgrown the facility and want to

increase the number of kids as well as the level of programming.”

Introducing young people to the water is something Malm feels strongly

about.

“It’s sitting right here for these kids and they’re at home playing

Nintendo and have no idea,” she said, adding that she enjoys the sense of

freedom, independence and pure joy of being on the water that she gets

while sailing.

And then there’s all those friends she’s made over the years.

“It’s neat to know that there are so many places in the country where

people live that I’ve sailed with,” she said. “I can go and sleep on

their floor and go out for dinner. Or we can go out on the water

together.”

FYI

For more information on the sea base, call (949) 642-5031 or go to o7

https://www.seabase.orgf7 .