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It’s surprising what you can find at the bottom of Newport Harbor.

Bicycles, toolboxes, traffic cones, even a boat. There’s lots of plastic and things that have fallen off boats—not that boaters are dumping stuff deliberately; they just wind up in the harbor.

On one memorable occasion, a diver found a gun. “We informed the police and they said don’t touch it,” explained boatman Guy Harden. “Two divers stayed there until the police showed up, saying the gun was part of an investigation. We never heard anything about it after that, sorry to say.”

The City of Newport Beach celebrated two significant milestones in Newport Harbor on Wednesday, August 27: opening a new public dock and welcoming the first electric patrol vessel in the Harbor Department fleet.

The new VITA Seal electric boat is also the first all-electric work vessel delivered to any public agency in the United States.

Newport Harbor Underwater Cleanup

The Newport Harbor Underwater Cleanup, in partnership with the City of Newport Beach, has announced the 4th Annual Newport Harbor Underwater Cleanup scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 21 at Marina Park in Newport Beach.

Launched in 2017 by Help Your Harbor’s founders—former Newport Beach mayor Marshall “Duffy” Duffield and local environmentalists Billy Dutton and Mark Ward — NHUC hosted three years of sold-out cleanup events at the Balboa Bay Club before being put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re thrilled to expand this year’s event at our new location,” says Billy Dutton, co-founder of NHUC and Help Your Harbor. “The Newport Marina Park site allows for much greater community participation, with volunteers helping to clean up our harbor both above and below the water. The addition of the International Coastal Cleanup Day celebration at Marina Park that afternoon will bring together over two dozen organizations and their volunteers, all committed to protecting our precious marine environment.”

After years of advocacy and enforcement actions, we are excited to see the Corps’ dredging project proceed with an improved design that better considers the health of Southern California’s coastal ecosystem,” said Garry Brown, founder and president of Orange County Coastkeeper. “The new plan for the dredged material is a big win for our waters and helps lower costs. Rather than burying contaminated sediment underneath Newport’s turning basin in a poorly designed disposal facility, the material will be repurposed and contained in an expansion project at the Port of Long Beach.

If you’re out and about on Newport Harbor on Sunday afternoon, July 16, you may see dozens of sailboats racing around the harbor. Give them plenty of room and cheer them on—it’s the 87th Annual Flight of Newport Beach, presented by the Commodores Club of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce with assistance from the Balboa Yacht Club.

Newport Beach International Boat Show

The Newport Beach International Boat Show will take place April 18 through 21 at Lido Marina Village, 3434 Via Oporto, with both on-water and on-land exhibitions, activations and entertainment.

The reimagined show will transform Lido Marina into a beautiful European coastal experience for everyone to enjoy.

The City of Newport Beach has introduced a new license program offering 16 onshore and offshore City-owned moorings to the public in a variety of sizes. Applications for the initial licenses will be accepted through March 1, 2024.

The new program is designed for vessel owners to lease moorings long-term without having to acquire a permit, sub-permit or mooring equipment.

Monthly fees will be charged based on the size of the mooring, starting at $162 a month for an 18-ft. mooring. There is no cost to apply for one of the 16 new mooring leases.

More than 70 boats competed in the 87th Annual Flight of Newport Beach, presented by the Commodores Club of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce with assistance from the Balboa Yacht Club.

Initially known as the Flight of the Snowbirds and later the Flight of the Lasers, the Flight of Newport had three different classes of boats racing to circumvent Newport Harbor.

If you’re out and about on Newport Harbor on Sunday afternoon, July 16, you may see dozens of sailboats racing around the harbor. Give them plenty of room and cheer them on—it’s the 87th Annual Flight of Newport Beach, presented by the Commodores Club of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce with assistance from the Balboa Yacht Club.

Burn off over mooring field, Newport harbor, California

On May 23, the City Council approved a pilot program to change the harbor mooring fields configuration and approved changes to the Harbor Code to accommodate the proposed pilot program and the long-term plan for all the moorings in the harbor.

Speak Up Newport is hosting a meeting on Wednesday, June 14 to discuss the mooring plan with guest speaker Bill Kenney, the former Harbor Commission Chair. He will describe the Harbor Commission’s Open Water Initiative and the reasons for the changes to the mooring fields.
The valves, which were built in the 1970s to replace a system from the early 1900s, are necessary to prevent flooding in low-lying areas. They are manually operated, and need to be closed during high tides to prevent seawater from flooding the streets. Once the tide recedes, crews reopen the valves — nearly 90 in total — to allow water to flow from streets to the bay.