Tall ship ends long trip

Marisa O’Neil

The Lynx, Newport Harbor’s resident tall ship, returned to port

Friday afternoon with its cannons blazing and a Harbor Patrol

fireboat escort.

The 122-foot replica of an 1812 privateer greeted onlookers with

ear-splitting cannon fire as it entered the harbor and as it passed

the Balboa Fun Zone. People on shore, in other boats and on the

Balboa Island Ferry watched and waved as the crew, dressed in period

clothing, unfurled the sails and the ship steamed into port.

It’s the first time the Lynx has entered Newport Harbor since it

set sail for Hawaii in June with five students aboard. The students

flew home two weeks later but the ship’s crew continued through the

islands and on to other ports in California.

“I can’t believe I put my daughter on that,” Newport Beach

resident Elaine Braswell marveled, as she watched the crew scramble

around the 90-foot-high rigging.

Braswell and her husband, John, watched the Lynx’s homecoming from

a chase boat that escorted it into the harbor. Braswell’s 15-year-old

daughter Helen was one of the students who made the crossing to

Hawaii thanks to the ship’s educational foundation.

That meant 18 days of not hearing a peep from her daughter as she

crossed the ocean, Elaine Braswell pointed out.

Back Bay High School student Jorge Alvarez, who sailed to Hawaii

with Helen, also was aboard the chase boat Friday afternoon. His

18-day Pacific crossing on the Lynx was the second time he’d ever

been on a boat.

“Seeing it come back in, it’s like: ‘Wow, I was on there,’” he

said. “‘I did it.’”

Far from a leisurely cruise, the voyage required the students to

stand watch, hoist the mainsails and swab the decks alongside the

crew. But Jorge didn’t mind, he said; he just thought of it as a new

spin on his normal chores at home.

He did need to make some adjustments, however.

Mellow little three-foot swells grew to 13-foot swells in the open

ocean. And not seeing any land, sea life or boats for days was

unsettling during the day and downright spooky at night, he said.

“I was kind of scared,” he recounted. “In the night, you couldn’t

see anything. You’d do bow watch and hear sounds and didn’t know what

they were.”

Jorge’s trip was sponsored by the Lido Junior Sailing Foundation.

He was selected by the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce Education

Committee to take the trip.

Appropriately enough, the Lynx pulled into port in Hawaii on his

18th birthday.

The whole trip was a great learning experience, he said. But one

of his favorite parts was snorkeling with sea turtles in Hawaii.

Now that the Lynx is back, it will be available for school-group

tours, sea battles and the Christmas parade, said Jeff Woods,

director of operations for the Lynx Educational Foundation. It will

sail in today’s Centennial Patriotic Boat Parade off Corona del Mar,

take part in a tall ships festival in Los Angeles on Sunday and then

will return to its new home at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].