Xmas Boat Parade

[mmcdonald47]

Anyone have any suggestions on what kind of lites I should use. Has anyone hung the
lites from tower. Any other suggestions or recommendations would be appreciated. All my grandkids will be with me so I want to look my best.

Thanks,
Mike
Walk-In-The-Water

 

[kim&tim]

We decorated last year and went into the Carole Ships Parade.....10 guests on board for dinner etc.....LOT'S of fun ...however.....I learned the HARD WAY......don't string ANY lights forward of the pilot house/helm station......I had them wrapped around the bow rails, strung down from the mast to the bow.....kinda looked like Snoppys Christmas tree lot.....only 1 small problem.....could not see a darn thing to navigate because of the light distraction.....only string lights aft of the helm station!.....I'm sure that my "navigation" problems were the result of the lights and not a result of having 10 guests on board ....with the odd single malt.....Ho Ho Ho !...it's COLD up here in Canada...we need our anti-freeze !

Tim & Kim
Hermitage-R29
Gibsons, B.C.

 

[JamesTXSD]

Outdoor Christmas lights - the more, the better. Use your generator to power them. Be sure everything is strapped down well (we use tie-wraps). The comment from Kim & Tim about lights on the bow is certainly valid... but, the boat looks more finished if there are lights all around. We put the lights on the bow on a separate string that we can turn off while in transit to the parade judging, then turn them on for the judges to see...

Heading out of that channel, we turn them back off again until we are in more open water along the parade route (assuming you are doing this for a boat parade). We run lights from our radar arch, I can't imagine you'd have any issue running them from your tower.

We have been away from the boat the last couple Christmas seasons, so we haven't been able to participate. We've taken a couple first place awards in our size category over the years... of course, I'm like a kid when it comes to this sort of thing (or, as my wife suggests, more like Clark Griswold).

We try to have ours decorated the night before so the neighbors get a chance to see it, and leave the lights on for a night afterwards... then they come off so we can get out there and enjoy the boat some more.

Pick a theme - have fun!

Best wishes,
Jim B.

 

[Lobo]

On the Pro Mariner 150 watt inverter I run 700 +/- LED Christmas lights on Lobo. I think this is around 8 strings totalling 150 feet of lights and cord. This is the inverter just a bit taller than a beer can, plugs into your cigarette lighter and sits in a cup holder. Got a second one at the Ranger Rendezvous last September, so now I have enough inverter power to go up to 1,400+ lights.


Dave
"Lobo"

 

[doke01]

We use a 400W inverter but we actually put up lights for the Fourth of July. Our R-25 is on the hard during winter so we plug in the shore power cable and just run the lights off the 110V supply for our Christmas lights.

 

[No Worries]

We just participated in a lighted parade in Newport RI and decked out our R21-EC using LED's fed from a 1000 Watt Inverter plugged in to our 12VDC outlet which is small but actually overkill as LED's use little. You can see her lit up in our album. Great fun and we won a blue ribbon for our class of boat. Everything from bow to mast to stern was lit to include net lighting inside the cockpit enclosure and a small tree to boot. Hope you had/have as much fun as we did.