Roy Disney gives racing yacht to OCC

Roy Disney, nephew of the legendary Walt Disney and a longtime boat

owner, has donated his prize-winning racing yacht to the Orange Coast

College Foundation, the latest in a string of major gifts to the

college’s School of Sailing and Seamanship.

In late July, Disney donated Pyewacket, an 86-foot vessel, for use

by OCC. The acquisition marks the second major gift this year to the

sailing school, which received the racing yacht Kialoa III from

Marina del Ray businessman Jim Kilroy last May.

Disney’s crew is sailing Pyewacket from Hawaii to Southern

California. It is expected to arrive later this week.

“It’s a fantastic donation, especially on the heels of getting

Kialoa,” said Doug Bennett, executive director of the Orange Coast

College Foundation. “It shows that our program is one of the top

programs in the country. We’re going to be able to offer some great

sailing experiences to our students.”

Pyewacket, which Disney launched in 2004 for $7 million, finished

third in this year’s Transpacific Yacht Race, or Transpac, from Los

Angeles to Honolulu. The owner gave the boat to OCC to commemorate

his retirement from racing.

“My crew and I have so many great memories of spectacular sailing

aboard Pyewacket,” Disney said in a statement. “It’s been a

tremendous ride. There’s nothing like the size and speed of this

boat. It gives me great pleasure to know that Pyewacket will now be

sailed by many sailors.”

Bennett said that the sailing school, which uses its boats for

expeditions around the globe, would reserve Pyewacket for advanced

and intermediate sailing students.

“It’s not a boat you just take out for a Sunday sail,” he

explained.

Disney, 75, has sailed worldwide for more than four decades and

raced a number of different Pyewackets. He raced the first one -- a

Nelson/Marek 68 -- in the 1987 Transpac, and raced other boats with

the same name in subsequent years. In 1999, Disney set a Transpac

time record for monohulls by completing the trek from Los Angeles to

Honolulu in seven days, 11 hours, 41 minutes and 27 seconds.

The Pyewacket Disney is giving to OCC won the inaugural First Team

Real Estate Invitational Regatta, held in late May in the waters of

Newport Beach.

Brad Avery, the director of OCC’s sailing school, had been in

conversation with Disney for several months before the transaction.

He said that he had often seen Pyewacket during his sailing trips to

Hawaii.

“It’s an excellent example of the state of the art in yacht racing

today,” Avery said. “It very much looks like a race boat.”

Bennett and Avery said that before OCC harbors the boat in

Newport, it will have to dock it at Marina del Ray to modify it for

local use.

“One of the things we’re going to have to do is have the keel

modified,” Bennett said. “Right now the keel is about 18 feet, and

the maximum depth in Newport Harbor is 12 to 14 feet.”

The OCC School of Sailing and Seamanship, founded in 1955, is

among the largest maritime institutions in the United States. Based

in Newport Harbor, the school maintains around three dozen boats and

offers workshops and boating lessons seven days a week.

Unlike the rest of OCC, the sailing school is not publicly funded,

and relies on tuition fees and community donations for its income.

Every year, the school holds a boat auction and marine gear sale to

cover additional expenses.

Avery said that Disney had pledged to pay the operating costs of

Pyewacket, which the college estimated at around $12,000 a month.

In recent years, the sailing school has acquired a number of other

well-publicized gifts. In 2003, former Yugoslavian president Milan

Panic gave the school his private vessel. Also that year, Southern

California yachtsman Henry Wheeler presented OCC with Rabbit Island,

a 36-acre island in British Columbia, for use by the sailing school.

The college currently uses Rabbit Island for summer courses in marine

science and other subjects.

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at o7michael.miller@latimes.comf7.