[Rhodes22-list] baltimore harbor lighted boat parade

[Wally Buck]

Nice Tom, so how bout some pics!

Wally

>From: SVTRITON at aol.com
>Reply-To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>To: rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org
>Subject: [Rhodes22-list] baltimore harbor lighted boat parade
>Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:25:29 EST
>
>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
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