16 • January 17 - 30, 2014 • The Log


Alaska Eagle Departs OCC Sailing School for New Start in Netherlands


Vessel to be refit to its original design


By Shane Scott


NEWPORT BEACH — The original champion vessel of the 1977 Whitbread Round the World Race (known today as the Volvo Ocean Race) will no longer call Newport Beach home as the Sparkman and Stephens sloop pre- pares to depart Southern California for its new home in Belgium. For the past 30 years, the 65-foot


Royal Huisman built sloop served as a teaching boat for the Orange Coast College (OCC) School of Sailing and Seamanship. All that time Gerard Schootstra and Otto Dvisterhoff of the Netherlands have kept their eye on the vessel with a desire to refit Alaska Eagle to its original design. In Schootstra’s town, and through-


out the Netherlands, Alaska Eagle, or as he knows it by her original name, Flyer, is a legend. “The boat changed the history of


sailing,” said Schootstra of the Revival of the Flyer Foundation. “Sparkman built his own boat specifically for the [Whitbread Round the World Race] and that’s how we race nowadays. The


professionalism of sailboat racing started with this boat.”


Schootstra got the idea to look for the boat six years ago. When he found it, he asked Brad Avery, director of OCC School of Sailing and Seamanship, if the vessel was for sale. It wasn’t. But, 11 months ago things changed. Avery and Schootstra struck a deal that would


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Flyer's New Skippers — Gerard Schootstra (left) and Otto Duisterhoff of The Revival of the Flyer Foundation, have been seeking to buy Alaska Eaglefor the last six years. After returning the boat to the Royal Huisman Shipyard, the men plan to restore the boat to its former glory, adding a second mast, aluminum dodgers, a sheeting on the aft, a new blue coat of paint, and changing her name from Alaska Eagleback to Flyer.


place the vessel in Schootstra’s owner- ship. Schootstra and Dvisterhoff quickly booked two one-way tickets to California on Jan. 2 On Jan. 7, they headed to the


Newport Harbor Shipyard where with the help of OCC School of Sailing and Seamanship instructors Richard and Sherri Crowe, they pulled the giant 90- foot mast securely across the boat’s deck. OCC President Dennis R. Harkins


and Avery watched as their oldest ves- sel was prepared for departure. “This is


really kind of a bitter sweet day for OCC,” Harkins said. But, Richard Crowe, who instructed sailors on the boat, which has traveled more than 300,000 miles, said it was time. “It’s not an ending, it’s a new beginning,” said Richard Crowe who ran the boat for 30 years. “When we first got Alaska Eagle nobody was doing the programs we were doing – actually taking students offshore,” Sherri Crowe said. During its stay at OCC, the vessel was the communication boat for the Transpacific Yacht Race nine times, competed in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, sailed to South Georgia, the Antarctic (twice), Northern Europe, and several times across the Pacific. Alaska Eagle will be replaced with a 92-foot power boat that is currently going through U.S. Coast Guard inspection. Schootstra and Dvisterhoff plan to


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ship Alaska Eagle from Long Beach to Belgium where they will sail to Rotterdam. After a welcoming party, the Netherland based skippers will take the vessel to its birth place, the Royal Huisman, where the vessel will be made to look as it was originally berthed – with a second mast, a sheet- ing on the aft, a blue coat to cover the hull, added aluminum dodgers and the


changing of her name from Alaska Eagle to Flyer. Revival of the Flyer foundation members plan to show the boat off at the prelude to April’s Volvo Ocean Race. “We won’t be racing, but we’ll be there to show the boat and give visitors a history of the race,” Schootstra said. Other events that Schootstra and the foundation members plan to show off their vessel at include Amsterdam’s International Boat Show. Flyer is also scheduled to race the Oct. 18, 2014 Rolex Middle Sea Race from Malta through the Mediterranean, around Sicily and back to its starting point. “Gonna be nasty weather. We’re not


sure if we’re going to do it yet, but as of the moment we’re scheduled to,” Schootstra said. The race that Schootstra is looking


most forward to is the 2015 Rolex Fastnet – a race from England to Ireland and back, where Flyer will be up for a rematch against its long time rival — King’s Legend. A boat that Schootstra is very familiar with. “I’ve got a bet against the guys on King’s Legend,” he said.


The money used to pay for the ves-


sel is currently being funded through Schootstra’s foundation. Supporters of Revival of the Flyer can donate on the website flyer-one.nl.


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