Luxury Yacht Joins OCC Sailing Fleet

Orange Coast College’s School of Sailing’s fleet just got bigger and quite a bit more luxurious thanks to a donation from businessman Milan Panic. The school, which has a fleet of five dozen boats, now has Panic’s 88-foot, $2-million motor yacht, Bella.

The sailing school, an independent, self-supporting program at the Costa Mesa community college, has a national reputation for teaching about 5,000 people annually in courses ranging from beginning sailing to the intricacies of diesel engines. Now students can learn how to crew a yacht that sleeps eight guests and five crew members and runs on twin 16-cylinder diesel engines.

“This is totally different than anything we’ve ever had,” said Brad Avery, director of OCC’s sailing school. “The boat is well-suited to be a platform on how to train people to get jobs on large motor yachts.”

Avery said he expects the boat will cost the nonprofit sailing school about $100,000 a year to maintain.

“We’ll recapture that money down the line when we eventually sell the boat,” Avery said. “Ultimately, we can’t afford to keep the boat. It’s definitely a luxury. But for two to five years, it’ll give us a unique opportunity to give students an experience they’ll get nowhere else.”

The 65-foot Alaska Eagle had been the program’s largest boat. The Eagle has sailed with students around the world for 20 years.

Panic, the former chairman of ICN Pharmaceuticals and ex-prime minister of Yugoslavia, used the yacht as his private vessel for 20 years.