Boat parade lights up the night

“Is that like the ultimate answer, or what? I could say it was to test all the lights before I put them on the house,” Lynch said. “I like that answer.”

Across the parking lot, a few boats were sliding into the cold river water, the red, blue, green and white Christmas lights somehow making it look even frostier than the mid-40s registering on the thermometer.

No, Lynch said, he’s never wished his 21-foot sailboat was a jet boat. Part of it, he said, “is because I use about 5 gallons (of gas) a summer and they use about 5 gallons an hour. I just like the sailing aspect more than the noisy motor aspect.”

The parade, however, called for an outboard, and it was ready to go, he said.

An hour later, however, Lynch was looking glum even as his boat, its decorations powered by a generator, lit up the waters around the dock. He was in the water, and hit the throttle, he said, and it belched black smoke and quit. “That’s why I have a sailboat and not a motor boat.”

“It was going to be really fun, and now it’s not,” said Dylana, whose mother is Desirie Lynch, staying warm with hot cocoa while her dad attempted to diagnose the problem. “Now we have to go home and put our Christmas decorations on the tree.”

Lynch’s absence left a small parade even smaller. The seven boats, including three emergency police and fire boats, cruised bravely forth, however.

“We are having a wonderful time as a family,” said Beth Aram of Clarkston, setting up for her second boat parade with husband Tom Aram. Their son, Phillip, a University of Washington student, skipped the Apple Cup to ride along with them and daughter and son-in-law Kristina and David Henriksen, and their friend, Jeremy Christianson, all of Lewiston, she said.

There were a couple minor glitches leading up to the parade that may have affected participation, including the unexpected absence of the club’s activities director, who had a family emergency, Paula Boeckman, commodore of the boat club, said as her husband, Paul, and the dock crew launched their boat. And since advance registration wasn’t required, she said, “We don’t know who’s showing up.”

“We’re just going with the flow,” Paula added. “Whoever shows up, we’ll all have fun.”

It’s the way of the boat club, founded in 1949, with the mission of promoting boating safety, she said.

That’s why they have crews to assist boats in getting on and off the water and to register every participant. Every boat carried a cell phone and met a long list of safety requirements, she said.