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The running joke is that sailors of the Rose Festival fleet have come up the river to spawn. Has there ever been any evidence to support this? Like, for example, an increase in births in the Portland-Vancouver area in February of the following year?
—Old Salty Sailor
You can get numbers to confess to anything if you torture them long enough, Sailor, so take the following with a grain of the salt that so festively encrusts your nether regions.
First, let's get a sense of demographic scale. Judging from the crew numbers associated with ships we've seen here in the past, Fleet Week usually brings roughly 1,000 presumably horny sailors to our shores. That's not a ton, but February births in Multnomah County are only about 600 to 1,000 per year, so 10 or 15 little Popeyes could really move the needle.
Now, let's compare February births (as a percentage of total births) in the county to February births in the rest of the state. If there's a spike locally that's not matched statewide, it's at least possible that a generous helping of Fleet Week seamen made the difference.
As it turns out, we do have a little baby bump. There's been only one year post-2010 when Multnomah County and/or the tri-county area didn't beat the rest of the state in February births. That year was 2014—and the previous year, 2013, just happened to be the year Fleet Week was canceled because of the government shutdown.
It does seem we've been getting at least a few more babies conceived around Fleet Week than the rest of the state. That said, we're talking differences of perhaps 3 percent to 5 percent, probably well within the margin of error—all we've really shown is that sailors don't render women sterile. If there is a genuine effect, it's more likely a result of the general party atmosphere surrounding the Rose Festival than the legacy of unstoppable Navy dick.
Still, that's not for lack of trying on the sailors' part. Say what you will about their morals, you've gotta admire their spunk.
Willamette Week