Mahdee Dressed for Christmas

The Westpoint Harbor Marina has a tradition of a Christmas decoration contest and winners are recognized at the Christmas party. Last year was our first Christmas here and our main goal was not to be a Grinch–so we needed to put something up.  Lacking any decorations, we purchased about 300′ of lights and ran them up halyards–fore and main–and also around the rub-rail.  And we got a couple of feature items–a baby Christmas moose (something that was probably a big seller in Minnesota, but not so much in California and therefore a pretty good deal) and a twinkling snowflake.  The net result was a big surprise to us, but was probably helped by us being newbies in the marina–we got awarded the 2nd place in the sailboat category.

Christmas Lights On Mahdee

Last January, we also retrieved some of our old things, from a faraway storage location, which included our Christmas decorations from when we lived in a house and decorated heartily for the jolly season of Christmas.  Last year it was too late to use those items by the time we had them, but this year we could.  One thing we decided to use was the old lights–at least 300′ more than last year.  This allowed us to run lights up both masts on flag halyards–about the only lines remaining after raising the other lights–oh and the canoe which is held up off the deck by halyards while in the marina.  Plus we had lights to go around the guard wires and lights for the charthouse and more to put around the cockpit.

Really, that IS a baby moose at the helm of Mahdee!

Because the real Grinch this year is the BCDC government agency which is attacking the marina in a devious manner, there is an excellent spirit among the boaters who want to show that BCDC isn’t going to steal Christmas this year.  This meant the competition for Christmas decorating was intense.  Again, our modest goal was to be an “also ran,” and not stand out due to lack of spirit.  So we got out the lights–old and new–and got out the marlin and other ropes to take the tension off the light cords and started rigging.  We didn’t have the flashiest display.  The lighting impact was helped by the fact that none of our immediate neighbor boats had lights and the slip next to us is now empty making our lights more visible.  Our main mast is also one of the tallest in the marina and being on the last slip meant our lights had mostly dark sky behind them when viewing from the marina road.  Nice attributes, but not like some of the vibrant flashing light displays on the other marina boats.   We felt, however, that we had achieved our objectives.

Santa Stop Here! sign on Mahdee’s bow just in case Santa should have difficulty finding us.

Curious about how much load we were putting on our electrical system with all the new lights, I put the kilowatt device on the lighting circuit.  The lights alone were drawing the same power as a medium electric space heater–but of course without any of the heat benefit on the inside of the boat.  I mentally totaled up the electric costs considering the pricy local $.38/kWh electricity charges.  More importantly, we don’t want to overload our power connections.  Fortunately, Brenda has been dedicated to using the solid fuel heater on board Mahdee so we have the reserve electrical capacity to run all of those lights without risking an electrical fire in the shore power cord. Lucky us.

Mahdee’s Schooner Rig Reflection.

The day of the party arrived and so did big winds replacing the calms of the previous and following week.  We had gusts up to 40MPH and as darkness fell the top section of lights on the mainmast above the spreaders were dark.  I lowered the flag halyard to check the plug and it was snug and there were no signs of a broken wire or loose connections in any of the bulbs.  Even though we had wrapped the lights around the flag halyard, I had been concerned about the weight of that light string stressing the copper electrical connections because it is nearly vertical for about 65 feet above the deck.  The judges were already doing the rounds, so I put back up the lights resigned to having the dark gap above the spreaders.

We went with the “more is better” lighting plan.

It was a complete shock then, that at the party in announcing the winning sailboat, they described the light display as visible from the international space station and then said Mahdee had won first place!  Wow! The prize was a very nice wireless printer/scanner that we will be able to use in our workshop.  But I was still curious about why we had won.  By chance, during the party, I ended up talking with one of the judges who complimented the overall lighting display on Mahdee and said the ultimate deciding factor was that the judges didn’t see a single zip tie in the rig–all marlin and knots holding up the lights–which demonstrated a truly nautical dedication to Christmas decorations and an environmental sensitivity that was absent on most of the other boats.  The funny thing is that I never even thought of using zip ties…  Oh, and two days after the party we had another wind storm and that night when the lights came on, even the section above the spreaders on the main mast lit up–fixed by the new winds–I consider it a Christmas miracle.