Paddle-powered parade

Engines. Who needs them?

Not the members of Newport Beach’s Imua Outrigger Canoe Club.

Group members are making their third entry in the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade this year, and all they have to power their way around Newport Harbor are paddles and muscle.

“Human-powered is the best. It’s so much fun on the outrigger,” canoe club member Cat Perry said Friday as club members got ready for the night’s parade run.

Imua’s entry was this year’s only human-powered craft to register for the boat parade, said Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce public affairs director Cara Stephens.

The Imua Outrigger Canoe Club formed in Newport Beach in 1970. The sport of outrigger canoeing has roots that stretch to ancient Polynesia. What makes outrigger canoes unique is something called an ama, a pontoon that is attached to the canoe’s hull by two iakos. In the water, the ama is always on the left side of the canoe and runs parallel to canoe’s hull. As Imua member Dave Martyn explained, the ama helps the canoe stay steady in ocean currents.

“What a Hawaiian ocean canoe is able to do is we’re able to go into the ocean, even during big swells,” Martyn said. “The whole idea is open ocean.”

For the parade, Imua members made several modifications to the traditional outrigger design. Club members used three canoes to form a makeshift trimaran by removing the amas from each craft, lining up the three canoes and building a platform in the middle. A beach shelter, minus its canopy, was set up on the platform and crowned with Imua’s blue-and-white flag and a Christmas tree that was duct-taped to the front of the setup.

Even without Christmas lights, Imua’s parade entry is not the kind of craft one would expect to see docked around Newport Harbor.

“When you check the box of what kind of craft it is, we don’t fit into any of the available categories,” Imua co-president Cathy Weinberg said. “But we’re here just the same.”

All together, the unconventional design gives Imua paddlers the responsibility to power a lot of weight around the harbor. Each canoe weighs 400 pounds, and club co-president Bill O’Rourke said the platform weighs another 400 pounds. An electrical generator adds another 100 pounds, not to mention the weight of 20 or so paddlers.

A LITTLE LESS ELECTRIC

Friday night, Imua members gathered at North Star Beach to prepare their entry for the parade. White icicle lights were strung around the platform and all three of the 40-foot-plus canoes were lined with rope lights -- strings of bright lights in plastic tubing to help keep water from ruining the electric wiring.

Last year, the club used strings of icicle lights to illuminate the canoes, O’Rourke said. This time around, the rope lights should make things, well, safer.

“The platform last year was electrified. You could feel the current,” O’Rourke said.

As preparations progressed Friday, the twilight faded away to night and the club’s illuminated craft appeared brighter and brighter against the darkening background of the Upper Newport Bay and the towers of Newport Center. The temperature dropped along with the sun, but O’Rourke said getting cold along the parade route was not a concern.

“We get warm enough paddling that people are shedding clothes and guys are just bare-chested,” he said.

READY TO GO

When the clock approached 6 p.m., Imua’s members were ready to leave North Star Beach and begin to make their way to Collins Island, the starting point for the parade. Dressed mostly in sweatshirts and Santa hats, Imua members were ready to push their craft into the water except for one important preparation -- the night’s toast.

After O’Rourke called the paddlers together and invited them to bring along their drink of choice, the group let out a coordinated shout of “Imua, Imua, Imua,” and pushed their improvised trimaran into the water.

“What time is it?” one club member called out.