Boaters Get in the Spirit With Holiday Yacht Parade

“Glor- or- or- ia!” 6-year-old Lindsey Daebritz screeched and warbled as she tumbled in the sand and watched a glittering parade of yachts pass her by Tuesday evening.

Daebritz and her parents had driven in from Orange to see the kickoff night of the 87th annual Newport Harbor Boat Parade. Hundreds of spectators lined the candy-cane festooned bridge to the island and walkways along the channels. Two dozen boats strung with twinkling lights and holiday floats set sail at low tide. Up to 100 are expected through the week.

Below deck on a 45-foot Roughwater motor yacht named El Cacique, Sandi Nemececk straightened her antlers before the parade. She had made the horned hat herself. Up top, her husband, Bill, checked the electronic team of reindeer prancing overhead one more time. He had spent hours each day last week carefully placing 3,000 lights, but when he flicked the switch on the reindeer, the time delay sequence made them appear to be running backward into Santa’s lap, not forward into the sky.

“Bill is trying real hard. He won third place last year. He really wants to win first place,” said neighboring yachtsman Jerry VanVliet of the Shark Island Yacht Club.

Nemececk confirmed, “We’d like to win. But we also do it for the fun of it.”

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VanVliet, 53, owner of Pacific Coast Painting, had a freshly painted large plywood Santa Claus toting a Thomas Guide of maps on his craft. He had corralled his pal, scuba diver Charles Moore, to hook 40 yards of lights draped like icing along the sides of the 51-foot boat.

VanVliet had no worries; he won a first-place prize two years ago for a set of reindeer sporting a sign that said “Will Work for Doe.”

Spectators and sailors toted everything from silver flagons of champagne to foam cups of cider, fortifying themselves against a stiff breeze.

“It’s great, you can’t do better than this,” said Ileana Putter, who wore her pearls over a warm Christmas tree sweater.

She and her husband Klaus (no relation to Santa) drive down from Los Angeles every year for the parade. They had no problem with the concept of reindeer running backward on El Cieque. “Santa’s got to have all the gears to get where he needs to go. He needs reverse, too,” pointed out Klaus Putter.

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Over on the South Walk, the Turley family was awed, even mystified by a blow-up Grinch doll on one boat.

“That’s the Grinch? I thought it was a giant frog,” said Sarah Turley, 11, of Fullerton.

They, too, had encouraging words for El Cieque when it passed by, reindeer aligned and running properly, smoke issuing from the chimney.

“Oh, look, it’s really cute,” said Flo Turley. “He even decorated the smokestack.” “The parade, it makes Christmas down here,” said Leslie Young of Balboa Island, who had invited the Turleys and every other friend she could think of to watch. “By the sixth day I’ll be saying ‘enough already,’ but it really is a wonderland.”

This year, the parade can be seen on the Internet (https://www.contagious.com/parade) with photos from an electronic camera. They can be accessed through Friday.