Lighted Parade Retrospective

I'm very curious to hear what other members/captains who participated in last Saturdays Chet Gibson Memorial Christmas Cruise have to say about it.  This was the first year we went the entire route (we usually just stay in Lake Union). 

The whole three plus hours was stop-and-go for us, sometimes remaining at idle for as long as 5 minutes, which was frequently accompanied by loud horn blowing behind us.

There were times, such as between Webster Point and the mainland of the eastside where it was a sprint across the lake, forcing some smaller sailboats, with tiny outboards that couldn't keep up, to drop out. 

We had a very near incident with a crane barge in this same area because the line of boats directed us to go between the barge and it's faintly lit anchor buoy.  One passenger was asking me what the buoy was on the portside and then I looked starboard to find we were within 60 feet (estimate of two boat lengths) of the actual barge. 

I noticed the turn boat that was stationary at the first turn upon reaching the mainland of the eastside joined the parade even though it was only a dozen or so boats behind the leader.  This left at least half of the parade without a turn point.  From then on this boat never stopped and thus I deemed it the lead boat even though from our vantage point it looked like there many boats in front of it.

The boat in front of us didn't seem to pay attention to traffic, in fact it looked as if he/she left the helm for extended periods during the idle periods, which would cause a large gap between itself and the boats in front of it when movement was restarted.  We tried to diminish this impact to the others behind us by continuing forward until we were almost side-by-side with them, and only then would they giddy-up and rush forward at a 15 knot clip (twice-than-normal). 

Is this what to expect during a typical Xmas Cruise?  If so, can we do anything to make it safer next time?  When we were back in Portage Bay I noticed only one boat veering off towards QCYC, so maybe most of the people in front of and behind us were non-members.  I believe we were only about a 1/3 behind the lead boat however.  I don't think I would ever do this again based upon this experience, but maybe it was just a fluke.