Remote-controlled boats and ships will once again be at Lake of the Commons in Tualatin in conjunction with the Tualatin Memorial Day observance. The Portland Model Power Boat Association (PMPBA) will be hosting its 15th annual float with vessels on the water and on land for display. We will set up in the morning, run water crafts before and after the event, and continue into the afternoon as members and guests enjoy a day at the water’s edge.
Our club has been on the water in the heart of Tualatin for many years, running mostly on select Saturday mornings from mid-April through early November. We have also contributed to some of the city’s other events, such as the annual Pumpkin Regatta, where we used some of our vessels to push giant floating pumpkins ahead of the races; the Crawfish Festival (now defunct); and the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in December, prior to COVID. The Christmas event featured some of our boats decorated for the holiday and Christmas lights on many of them. A couple of times per season, we also run on the Westmoreland Casting Pond, about a mile and a half east of the Sellwood Bridge.
We have had a few opportunities to reach further into the local community, such as one where we showcased our hobby with a dry display at Ace Hardware’s 100th Anniversary event at the Tigard/King City location in June 2024. We held a dry display next to Oswego Lake in 2016 for Lake Oswego’s Annual Car and Boat Show. We had a couple of Chris-Craft model boats on display very similar to some real ones on the lake. In the mid-1990s, the club had a display at the annual Portland Boat Show. We are always looking for ways to integrate our hobby into the local community and recruit more members. We are often surprised at how often we discover that the locals just don’t know that we are here.
In July 2025, we held our first event at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon, where the museum recently built an above-ground pond. It is smaller than the pond in Tualatin, but still a good size for running our vessels, and it provides a new venue for us to share our hobby. We have two events planned there later this season in June and August.
Our running schedule is available online, and there are usually a few paper copies at our events. Just ask one of our members, and we will see who has one to share with you. For more information about our club and events, or to reach out to us, visit PortlandModelPowerBoatAssociation.com and our Facebook group page, Portland Model Power Boat Association. We hope you’ll come to see us soon.
