This Weekend's Wooden Boat Festival - A Flotilla of Fun

OK, if this isn’t the most unique Father’s Day gift ever … come on!

On yesterday’s " “Best of Laguna Beach” radio show, we talked about a veritable flotilla of fun arriving this weekend in Newport Beach.


Here’s everything we discussed (and sang!) in our fast-moving show:


🛥️ Newport Beach Wooden Boat Festival’s theme this year: Stories of the Sea: Wooden Boats in Film & Fiction (Hollywood movies and best-selling books that created celebrities out of the classic wooden boat … or celebrities that procured and loved them)

🚣‍♂️ This year’s fest has 35 boats incoming, including a 60-foot rowing boat and a shell designed by none other than George Pocock, the legendary boat builder of the racing shell featured in “Boys in the Boat.”⛴️ 🍔 🧑‍🎨 🎥 🖼️ 

🍺 GIANT Festivities include tours of boats and yachts with plenty of chats with the captains … bay tours on John Wayne’s Wild Goose yacht … a huge BBQ and plenty of libation stations … live music throughout the day … Laguna’s own plein air painters … an original photo gallery of great movie legends with their wooden boats

🎶 Our official Sea Shanty Singer Tony Cielo joins us with a fascinating history on not only the sea shanty world (these guys have been around for centuries) but his own history of how he added this uniqueness to his resumé.




👩‍🦰 Tony sings “The Argo,” actually written around a woman sea captain, which was a much more common fixture than most of us think.

🍾 The VIP Premiere Night on Friday, June 13th is a swank event with sneak peeks and tours of the wooden boats, top shelf champagne and cocktails, gourmet appetizers, live music, dancing, a live (crazy cool item) auction and more. Less than 20 tickets were remaining during our show, so get on it!




🎶 Then, Tony Cielo finishes our show with a “newer” Sea Shanty song whose lyrics have to do with that repetitive food served at sea . . . “Chicken on a Raft.”