Who can forget the fiery, floating Dragon float from 2022’s lighted boat parade, winning first place and taking the breath away from the hundreds of Lake Anna viewers? This last December, Mike Cleaves’ 34ft long, 20 ft high and 29ft wide rowing Viking Ship wasn’t so lucky as to place in the top three, but it certainly left an impression on the crowds from Tim’s at Lake Anna all the way to The Taphouse for the finale.

“We started working on the wire canvas around October. There are just over 8,760 lights on the ship, 2,000 zip ties holding everything together, and two 3,600-watt generators to power everything. Plus, a few dozen screws at the bottom of the lake around my boathouse… something to dive for next summer,” said Cleaves.

Cleaves and his wife, Audrey, have been frequent visitors to their Lake Anna house for 12 years. Retired, Cleaves was a senior sales executive for computer software.

“I’ve always had a small boat. When we lived at Solomons Island, they have 40ft yachts. I had a little 22ft boat, so it became a challenge to do something that the size of my boat wasn’t the limit of what I could do,” says Cleaves, who started participating in boat parades when he and his family lived in Maryland.
The Viking Ship is part of a series of fantastical floats that Cleaves has constructed over the years. The first was a pirate ship with an 18.5-foot mast. With each of the three boats that was constructed in Maryland: Pirate Ship, Dragon, then Viking Ship… he got a second chance by recreating them here at Lake Anna.

Planning for such grand projects involves more trial and error than one might expect. “It’s more trial and error than anything. I’ve done this before. The way I made the oars work at Solomons barely worked… they worked for a minute or two and then didn’t work. Now it’s my second revision on how to make the oars row… I’m not sure this is gonna work either, but I’ve been playing with it. It works half the time, and I have a couple more things to try to fine-tune it,” he explained pre-boat participation last December.
As we know now that the second parade is said and done, the oars didn’t work as well as anticipated. “There’s aways next year,” Cleaves explained in anticipation of what’s to come.

“The big thing was a lot of people were super curious about how in the world you got that under Stubbs bridge. The Stubbs Bridge shouldn’t be an obstacle, it should be a challenge for more people to want to participate and try to win,” he chuckles. I wish they would,” he says, expressing a desire for more participation in the boat parade. “I think the parade needs more of this. I don’t know how to stimulate people to do it. This is just trial and error; I didn’t buy a kit.”

“We never went under Stubbs Bridge with the dragon during the parade, only as a test run in case the dragon would have fit.” he adds. The wire fencing used for his creations is reused each year to spread out the cost. Cleaves attributes his hands-on, do-it-yourself mentality to his upbringing. “My father was born and raised on a farm. Farmers have to be jacks of all trades and learn how to fix everything, and he was that kind of man. Today we throw it away. We’re a product of what we were raised through.”

With each of his ships, Cleaves continues to push the boundaries of creativity. The dragon boasted a telescoping mast for bridge clearance and a tilting dragon head. As with the dragon, Cleaves’ Viking Ship needed two slips, but this time on each side of the dock. Cleaves innovation stands as a testament to the spirit of determination that transforms the lake into a dazzling spectacle each year.

Jen Bailey

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