The Crowd: Shop until you drop for cancer research

The Newport Harbor Yacht Club, as well as the other prestigious clubs in the harbor, including the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club and the Balboa Yacht Club, are mainstays of rigorous competitive training beginning with very young children, continuing all the way through grade and high school, college and into adulthood. Otherwise stated, sailing is a way of life.

Led by President and Director Warren Person, the foundation counts among its dedicated board of directors and volunteers local sailors, including Tom Linden, Paul Stemler, Rick Emsiek, Doug Welsh, Robert Kinney, Michael Daily, Richard Robinson and Adam Deermount.

It was the East Coast Hamptons set arriving on the Balboa Bay front as the crowd in billowy white cotton outfits mingled on the Yacht Club terrace, toasting tall crystal champagne flutes, sparkling as the final rays of sunlight bounced off the harbor's Main Channel. A steel drum band played the obligatory calypso beat as the crowd got in the mood to bid on a massive silent auction prior to a sit-down dinner in the club.

By the end of the evening, some $40,000 was raised for the foundation, extremely substantial given that the evening dinner ticket was priced at $40 per person. Spotted in the White Party crowd were Molly Calder with father and mother-in-law Scott and Jane Calder, Bill and Lisa Johnson, Carter and Sarah Ewing, Justin and Julie Wilson, Jim and Deena Warmington, and Pat and Libby Werner.

Also supporting the foundation were Graham Tingler, Annie McCray Pauley, Tim and Sheila Collins, Peter and Harriett Pallette, and John and Jennifer Drayton. To find out more about the work of the Newport Harbor Sailing Foundation, visit http://www.nhsailingfoundation.org.

THE CROWD runs Thursdays and Saturdays. B.W. Cook is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.