Testing the mettle of petals

What does it take to build a float for the Rose Parade? Lentils, walnuts, blue irises, roses, a quarter of a million dollars and tens of thousands of man-hours.By the time you read this, Newport Beach’s float for the 2006 Rose Parade will be an ocean of 10,000 blue irises and 20,000 roses ready -- come rain or come shine -- to surge down Colorado Boulevard in Monday’s parade.

At 28 feet high, the float honoring the city’s centennial is one of the tallest in the parade this year. It represents an expense of about $220,000 and thousands of hours of work by Newport Beach residents who wanted to be part of the city’s history and the world-famous Rose Parade.

Fiesta Parade Floats began building the float in June. Busloads of volunteers from the city rode to the company’s Duarte facility every day last week to painstakingly glue lentils, flower petals and crushed walnuts all over the float. Its surface has to be entirely covered with natural materials.

“You don’t even begin to appreciate when you start doing the little detailed part of the float how much work is involved,” said Helen McCarthy, 51, a former designer for Disney who arranged the costumes for the float.

The float depicts sailboats, a giant clam shell containing a pearl, the bow of a ship with a figurehead, and seagulls, starfish, turtles and dolphins.

Shari Fraser, 69, got to help spread glue on the dolphins and then cover them with silver leaf protea, a plant with shiny leaves.

“I’ve seen it done before and it’s fabulous. It looks incredibly real and they kind of shimmer, like fish do when they’re wet,” she said.

The work -- two eight-hour shifts a day -- brought out people of all ages, including a half dozen students in the Newport Beach Youth Council who decided to come as a group.

“I think it’s an awesome float,” said Tabitha Ayou, 16, who was gluing crushed walnuts to the bow of the ship Thursday. “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

They had to separate flowers from their petals, get covered with toxic-smelling glue and climb high in the air on scaffolding to reach the top parts of the float, but the volunteers were dedicated and didn’t quit.

Lynda Badum, 48, was in awe of fellow volunteer Pat Smith, who came every day last week to help on the float.

Badum said of Smith, “she’s having chemotherapy in the morning [on Friday] so she can take the bus [to Duarte] in the afternoon.”

Smith, 68, is understandably interested in the float, since she’s on the centennial float committee.

“You can’t get bored doing this,” Smith said. “It’s like I told the people on the bus, if they don’t have fun, it’s their own darn fault.”

They learned a few things, and they also made new friends. Rupert the black swan depicts an actual bird that lives around Newport Harbor, and he’s got a number of companions: the starfish, Vince and Reggie (named for football players) and Bob and Stephanie; and the turtles, one of whom is named Myrtle.

“All the seagulls are named Jonathan. We made that easy,” said Dan Trimble, a city employee who has helped direct float activities.

Most volunteers said the float doesn’t look the same on TV as it does in person. For one thing, you can’t smell the flakes of coconut that whiten the sailboat’s sails.

Only nine people will ride the float in Monday’s parade -- Newport Beach Mayor Don Webb and Councilman Steve Rosansky, four former Rose Queens who live in the city, a contributor and his daughter, and the daughter of another donor -- but hundreds will take away flowery memories of building a beautiful piece of the city’s history.

“I’ve lived here all my life, and my dad used to take us as kids and we’d sleep in sleeping bags on the parade route,” Fraser said.

“I think it’s every Californian’s dream to work on the Rose Bowl Parade.”

NEWPORT BEACH’S ROSE PARADE FLOAT at a glance

* Description: ocean scene including sailboats, a clamshell containing a pearl, a ship’s bow with figurehead, sea life including dolphins and turtles, trailing seaweed and seagulls

* Float dimensions: 28 feet high, 55 feet long, 18 feet wide

* Weight of finished float: 45,000 pounds

* Time to build the float: 2,000 hours

* Time to decorate: 70,000 hours

* Number of riders: 9

* Average speed of float: 2 1/2 mph

* Length of parade route: 5 1/2 milesKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOTBernadette Rosselit and her granddaughter, Danielle, apply saffron to color the seaweed trailing off the end of Newport’s Rose Parade float on Sunday. Marcus Pollitz shuffles across scaffolding under the watchful eye of the figurehead on the Newport Beach Rose Parade float on Sunday. Forecasts call for rain on the parade.Employees of Fiesta Parade Floats apply a coat of paint to a park bench on the float. Mayor Don Webb inspects the canopy of the Newport Beach float’s giant clamshell. Dori Davis and other volunteers apply a layer of split peas to give Esther the sea turtle just the right shade of green. All floats in the Rose Parade must be entirely covered with natural materials.20060101isdy0encKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)Marcus Pollitz delicately paints one of the eyes of the figurehead on Newport’s float. 20060101isdy03ncNo Caption20060101isdy10ncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT20060101isdy2tncDON LEACH / DAILY PILOT20060101isdy3wncDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / DAILY PILOT20060101isdy1lncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT