Come sail away

Alex Coolman

It’s a cold, brisk evening on the ocean. The yawl Santana cuts through

the purple waves, foam splashing brightly against her hull. The sails are

round and taut with wind, and they shine with the peach light of the

sunset.

Meanwhile, up in a puffy cloud in the corner, Humphrey Bogart is digging

the scene.

That’s the way Steve Simon has rendered his portrait of the Santana, a

painting that’s part of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum’s exhibit of

yacht art.

“Reflections: The Famous Yachts of Newport” features more than 40 works

-- images of boats that have graced Newport waters over the years. Not

all of the paintings manage to squeeze the local history angle onto the

canvas quite as successfully as Simon’s does, but all of them come

equipped with a few appropriately exotic nautical yarns (onetime Newport

resident Bogart owned the Santana, and is said to have romanced Lauren

Bacall below deck).

There’s the impressive image of the blue-hulled yawl Escape, a 72-foot

beast that stopped during a race in 1958 in Acapulco, rescued the crew of

one of the competing boats (which had burst into flames) and then flew on

toward the finish line, somehow managing to finish second.

There’s the Nalu II, a 46-foot sloop that won a Transpac race so

decisively in 1959 that rumors circulated about the occult practices of

the crew, who were said to be sacrificing live chickens to appease

Hawaiian gods. (It turned out that the crew was merely hungry and

hankering after a little fresh meat.)

And then there’s the converted minesweeper Wild Goose, a boat that was as

distinctive for its odd and endearing shape as it was for its owner: John

Wayne.

It goes on and on. Every painting in the show is a window onto Newport

Beach nautical history, with accompanying captions (which are

unfortunately short) rattling off the facts for those who never saw these

boats in their prime.

The style of the works is fairly tame, as might be expected, given the

subject matter. There are so many mildly choppy seas, partly cloudy

skies, and ornamental sea gulls in these pictures that when a viewer

finally peers at a work like Cliff Wassmann’s portrait of the Swift of

Ipswich, which features a slate gray sky and calm waters, the effect is

oddly surprising.

Gary Miltimore’s painting of the Serena Downwind, a work that looks at

the boat from overhead (perhaps from the point of view of one of those

ornamental sea gulls?), is also, in its moderate unconventionality,

something of a shocker.

But Simon’s work, with its Bogie-in-the-corner sensibility, does the best

job of all the works in the show of transmuting its own cheesiness into a

thoroughly enjoyable product.

“Some fine art folks would take issue,” said show curator Marcus de

Chevrieux of the heavenly Bogart. “But it’s kind of nice.”

And that’s exactly the point. These paintings aren’t supposed to be

high-art masterpieces, they’re supposed to be fun and engaging. They’re

supposed to inspire viewers to recall the salty dog days of yore.

“It’s sort of reflective of Newport Beach and all the boats that have

made us famous,” de Chevrieux said. “It’s local boats by local people.”

Many of the works were donated by local sailing figure George

Hoedinghaus, a retired naval officer and onetime Commodore of the Balboa

Yacht Club.

Hoedinghaus, a 35-year Newport Beach resident, commissioned several dozen

works for the show -- paintings that will remain in the museum when the

exhibit closes.

The goal of getting the paintings made, Hoedinghaus said, was to

highlight the rich yachting history of the area.

“You know, Newport is certainly one of the best, if the not the best

yacht harbor in the world,” Hoedinghaus said. “We sail year-round. We’ve

got all the racing and cruising. We’ve got everything.”

Many of the artists who were selected to create the works are local

residents. Miltimore, a Newport Beach painter, has five works in the

show.

“The neat thing about Gary is that he has probably sailed in at least

half of [the boats in the show],” de Chevrieux said. “He has firsthand

knowledge of so many of the boats that he could probably paint them from

memory.”Hoedinghaus said he was able to get many of the paintings created

at a very reasonable price “because the artists were anxious to have

their paintings in a permanent collection in a marine museum.”As for the

aesthetics of the work, Hoedinghaus is satisfied that the subject matter

renders the paintings sublime.

“Some of these yachts really are among the most beautiful creations that

have ever been made,” Hoedinghaus said. “People talk about classic art,

but there’s classic art in yachting. These old yachts are classics, and

they’re just beautiful to look at.”

FYI

WHAT: “Reflections: The Famous Yachts of Newport”

WHERE: Newport Harbor Nautical Museum, 151 E. Coast Highway, Newport

Beach

WHEN: Through Feb. 4. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through

Sunday.

HOW MUCH: Free

TELEPHONE: (949) 675-8915