Brad Avery is a retained yacht donation consultant for the Orange Coast College Foundation and the former director of Orange Coast College’s marine program and manager of the school’s yacht donation program. He grew up in a sailing family and began crewing professionally on large yachts at 17, making four Atlantic crossings under sail and spending several years cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean before returning home and attending OCC, and then the University of Southern California.
He received a degree in journalism from USC in 1979, and later a master’s degree in public administration from Cal State Long Beach. He holds an all-oceans Coast Guard Master’s license and is also licensed as a yacht broker in California.
From 1983 until 2011, Brad raced and cruised extensively, including 13 Transpac races, and also participated in the Bermuda, Sydney – Hobart, Kenwood Cup, and Pacific Cup races. As a relief skipper of OCC’s sail training sloop Alaska Eagle, he logged approximately 75,000 miles on voyages throughout the South Pacific, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia and Europe. His favorite landfalls included Antarctica, and the islands of South Georgia, Macquarie, Pitcairn, Easter, Minerva, Fair Isle, and the Shetlands.
For the past 15 years, he has spent much of his off time exploring the west coast from Alaska to Mexico aboard his 53-foot heavy displacement trawler, Galatea. Brad is a staff commodore of Transpacific Yacht Club and Newport Harbor Yacht Club. He is also a member of St. Francis Yacht Club and Cruising Club of America.