[Rhodes22-list] baltimore harbor lighted boat parade

[SVTRITON at aol.com]

hi all
this past weekend triton participated in the 17th annual baltimore harbor 
boat parade..we were scheduled to participate last yr but snow kept us out...this 
was our first parade and we were the last boat in the parade except for a 
huge harbor tug which was behind us...our crew were fellow rhodies don and 
jeannie clark and jim and rosemarie harrison and my better half linda...our theme 
was "wheres rudolph"...don clark aka santa  was on the bow with a search 
light..the ladies..dressed in elf costumes were in the center of the boat throwing 
candy at the kids (im waiting for the lawsuits)..jim harrison was in charge of 
the dighy which held rudolph..a lighted deer shaking his head no, adorned with 
a red strobe light of course..and i was at the helm....we were powered by a 
900 watt generator that sat under the tiller in the cockpit...we had a string of 
150 colored lights going up the forestay and another string going down the 
backstay with another string going down the mast and another going across the 
boom..also we had two sets of white icicle lights on each side of the boat and a 
wreath at the bow and one at the base of the mast...also rudolph had 300 
white lights.....we had a preliminary run the day before and all worked 
well....last saturday night we started out in one of two circles one in fells point the 
other in the inner harbor..all went well as we lined up...no lights were 
on....then the parade started and we were given the go ahead to light up which we 
did..carefully adding one load at a time....things went well for about 15 
minutes and then the generator popped a fuse...of course it was overloaded...when i 
had originally done my computations for a 900 watt generator i was going to 
use 7 amps of current..unfortunately we got so carried away that the generator 
was holding up  i was up to about 18 amps...anyway..we started disconnecting 
lights but it was not enough..the lights would go out..then pop back on for a 
few minutes then go out again....to make a long story short as we approached 
the judges boat the lights miraculously came on and after we passed them they 
popped out again ...we were so bummed that we went back to our dock, drank rum 
and didnt go to the after sail party....yesterday i found out we took 2nd place 
in the smaller boat category (35 and under)...thanks to a great crew and a 
great boat....so we got an early christmas gift this year....next year well get 
a bigger generator
best
tom