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Peter is having some difficulty because of rubber banding. The leader has just announced that a cartwheel is coming up and he wants to be in place in time so that he can perform well. Dozens of people are watching. He bends over to reach the throttle beneath the cockpit seat and pushes it forward. The diesel engine whines in response, Wind Dancer pulls up until Peter is comfortable with his distance from the boat in front and the one in back. He’s conquered the effect of rubber banding and he’s ready for the cartwheel.
It is a cold evening in December, 2005, during Portland’s 52nd Annual Christmas Ship Parade. Peter Mahr is at the helm of Wind Dancer, his 27-foot sailboat, participating in the parade for his first time. Boats lit up brightly with designs ranging from leaping dolphins to water-skiing elves cruise for a couple hours, one parade on the Columbia River and one on the Willamette River. People make reservations at restaurants and on cruise ships months in advance to watch. Peter and I are teachers at the same high school, and we’ve been sailing buddies for about 15 years. We also happen to own the same kind of boat, a 27’ Balboa sloop. Last year I told him I thought it would be fun to participate in the parade. My boat has an outboard engine, which does not provide enough power. Wind Dancer has a diesel engine and he had been interested in the parade for years. He decided to participate in the Willamette fleet. My biggest concern was whether or not I could keep up in a sailboat when the rest of the fleet was composed of motor boats, Peter told me. On the first night we encountered the rubber banding phenomena where boats would bunch up and stop, then would have to speed up to catch up. The other boats could do eight or nine knots but I couldn’t do more than six. We later learned that we needed to be further up in the line where the rubber banding was not so pronounced. We were complimented on our ability to keep up since other sailboats have caused problems in the past. Occasionally the leader would announce that all boats would do a maneuver known as a cartwheel, a complete rotation in place, or a curtsy, a partial rotation. This created a great show for people watching from restaurants, standing on the bank or on the deck of the Portland Spirit, a cruise ship that followed the parade. The leader would announce through the radio that we were going to do a cartwheel to the left or right, Peter said. Then he’d ask if anyone had a problem with that because he couldn’t see all the way to the end of the parade. Maybe a third of the time someone might say something like. ‘Well, I’m right next to a bridge abutment and don’t have room.’ The leader would come back on the radio and say, ‘Stay where you are.’ That boat wouldn’t do the rotation. I had problems sometimes with the current and the wind blowing my bow more than the stern. To the right was easy but to the left I needed forward speed at a time when I was supposed to be staying in place. There were a couple times when I got out of sync and needed enough reverse speed to steer with the rudder. Most sailboats don’t do well in reverse. Peter is a tall, sturdily built man with a full, thick beard, looking every bit the part of a mariner. He’s had a variety of sailing experiences, from ocean cruising to sailing a Hobie Cat 16 for almost 40 years He’s owned Wind Dancer for ten years. He is a perfectionist when it comes to sailing, partly because he wants things to last a long time and partly because he thinks good seamanship is an essential part of boating. He loves to tinker with anything involving boats, whether it’s his or a friend’s. The Christmas Ship Parade provided the perfect way to mess around with boats during the winter, when Wind Dancer normally sits under cover on a trailer in his backyard. Peter decided his design would be a Christmas tree. I felt bad that no sailboats were represented in the fleet. With a tall mast at my disposal a tree was a natural. The only other decoration that occurred to me was a big candle, but a tree was easier given the shape of the rigging. Peter is the embodiment of the American spirit of independence: be creative in acquiring what you need by seeking donations or working a trade deal. Also, store anything you get your hands on for free that will some day be put to use. As a teacher of Metal Shop and Small Engines Repair, and a former teacher of Electronics, he had all the skills he might need. I started collecting lights. I emailed the staff at school and told all my friends and neighbors. Many people contributed and I always gave them the opportunity to receive a ride in exchange. Knowing that the wire in these strings of lights is not very strong, I decided to make the outline with some one-half-inch rope my father-in-law had found years ago on the Oregon coast. It took 261 feet of rope with the lights spaced one foot apart, 86 feet for the tree, 100 feet just for the garland, 50 for the lifelines and 25 for the star. This is equal to twenty 100-watt light bulbs of power. I used four extension cords and one power strip to plug everything in to a generator on the foredeck. Luckily a friend had an old generator. He was willing to trade it for some woodworking tools that students are making for him in the metal shop. The gas tank had a hole in it so I made a plug and soldered it shut. When I ran it I found out that it stopped every ten minutes. I ended up rebuilding the entire fuel system. I made an air filter since it is no longer available to buy. The generator burned one gallon of gasoline for every two hours of run time. Since it has a two gallon tank, I refilled it every night in order to have a gallon in reserve. Peter drew designs until he was satisfied that he could create a good tree. He planned to raise three lines that were attached together up the mast. Two of the lines would go fore and aft and be attached at the bow and stern. A separate line would connect those lines to form the base of the tree. Lights would also be attached to the transom rail and lifelines, stopping short of the bow so visibility wouldn’t be affected, and would run to the deck to look like a tree trunk. Then came the hard part: another line would be hoisted to the top and wrapped around the entire design to form a garland. He wrapped the lines together and hauled it to my boat, which is in the water with the mast raised, in order to see if it would work. He was satisfied with the result. I helped him launch his boat at Willamette Park and watched him motor off for Riverside Marina, a very nice and expensive marina along the Portland waterfront where he got a free berth for the duration of the parade. A few days later I joined him to help put the whole thing together. Everything went well, but creating a garland was a challenge. We raised the line, all one hundred feet of it with lights attached, to the top of the mast. Then we had to walk it around and around the stays and shrouds, moving from bow and stern for the wrapping effect. Peter had a heavy 28-foot, very wobbly fiberglass pole made of two power boat radio antennas (salvaged by a friend from a dumpster) with a hook on the end attached by a metal shop student. I stood on the dock or deck of the boat, wrestling with this monstrosity to free the lines high up on the shrouds until they were positioned correctly. 
My wife and I joined Peter and his wife, Becky, on the maiden voyage. There were only two problems: the difficulty catching up if you fell back (the rubber banding effect) and we had the radio turned to the wrong frequency for about a half an hour and didn’t get any communication during that time. Once we discovered the mistake, Peter delighted in participating in the conversations and listening to the directions. I accompanied him three times and felt that he was as happy as I’ve ever seen him on a boat.
A more serious problem occurred on his fifth voyage, at least for me. I was on the cruise with a co-worker and her three children. The temperature was in the mid 30’s. It was 6:30 p.m., time to pull away from the slip. I was trying to uncleat the bow line and decided to jump on the deck instead of pulling the boat to me. I slipped on the deck and fell into the river! Fortunately, Peter had a propane heater in the cabin and I was able to keep relatively warm with blankets and sleeping bags and a few spare items of clothes I found on board. One night a boat got stuck on rocks in shallow water near Milwaukie but was able to get free. On another night a barge, with a tug pushing, came out from behind Ross Island while we were doing a cartwheel just upstream of the Markham Bridge. I saw the tug’s search light but didn’t report it since I didn’t know what it was. The boat two boats behind me then reported to the fleet that a tug and barge were bearing down on us going down stream at a high rate of speed. Sugar Crisp, our leader, came on the VHF and told everybody to get out of the way fast, on their own, since the tug had not communicated with us so we could do an evasive maneuver as a fleet. Boats were in a bit of confusion as it was not clear what the intentions of the tug/barge were. We were never able to raise them on VHF. There were no collisions, and we reformed our line once it was past. There were three or four support boats on the cruise every night from the Multnomah County River Patrol, the Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Peter was accompanied by fellow Franklin staff and friends on his nine voyages. He would gladly have done more – cold and potential monotony did not seem to affect him. Becky cruises with him frequently during the summer and was aboard for four cruises. She had a cruise planned to the much warmer Caribbean. Becky also inspired one of the most interesting challenges to the construction of the Christmas tree by asking that it include a star. Peter told me early in the planning stages that he would create one if he had time, but I knew the challenge would be too much to pass up for a sailor who loves challenges. A student in my metal shop made a wire frame welded to a 6-foot pole that was attached to a halyard and raised to the top of the mast. How about plans for next year? Well, he said cheerfully, like participating again is a given, I think there should be candles on the tree and presents under it. The challenge of figuring out how to do that will, of course, be part of the joy. ...back to 48° North title page.
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