THE HARBOR COLUMN:

Ahoy,

Wow, it is time once again for all the boaters to start planning and decorating your vessels for the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade. This is the centennial year for the parade, which will cruise around the harbor nightly from Dec. 17 to 21. Rumors are floating around that fireworks will kick off this year’s parade on Wednesday, just before the start of the parade.

Annually, I lend my sage advice for safety when planning the decorations for your boat, kayak, canoe, PWC, paddleboard or submarine. The foremost piece of advice is that the skipper must be able to see without decorations impeding the view. Most of the collisions or near misses I have witnessed are either the skipper’s lack of visibility all around the vessel or the skipper simply not paying attention to the duties at hand. Should the skipper’s view be limited, then have someone be a lookout to watch the blind areas.

My next advice is that water and electricity do not mix. Over the years, I have been zapped touching the metal railings, and you can get zapped when a wet extension cord is grounding out to the metal railing. All of the exterior electrical cords should be rated for use outdoors, and wrap the connections with electrical tape.

Also, decorations cannot obstruct the deployment of any safety device aboard your vessel, including ring buoys, life rafts, life jackets and fire extinguishers. For example, do not wrap a string of lights around your throwable ring buoy, making that lifesaving device useless if someone falls overboard.

Furthermore, the decorations cannot interfere with the vessel’s navigational lights. An easy solution is to enhance your navigational lights by putting red light bulbs in by the port light and green light bulbs in by the starboard light.

Technically, unless you are in a sanctioned parade route, it is not proper to display your Christmas lights if the lights distract from the navigational lights.

Lastly, I do have a temporary change for my radio show for the next two weeks due to the Clippers and Notre Dame games.

I will be broadcasting at 1 p.m. Sunday and returning to my usual schedule at the end of the month at 11 a.m. Saturdays. So tune in to “Capt. Mike Whitehead’s Boathouse Radio Show” on KLAA-AM (830).

MIKE WHITEHEAD is the Pilot’s boating columnist. Send marine-related thoughts and story suggestions to [email protected] or go to www.boathousetv.com.