Nanaimo’s harbour was a ‘seething cauldron’ of tubbers and boats when the start gun launched the first International World Championship Bathtub Race 50 years ago.
The bathtub race was a bow to the 100th birthday of Canada and seen as a one-time novelty event – 178 boats launched to the start of the flare gun intending to cross the Georgia Strait, according to a book by the Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society. Seventy boats “came to grief” on the way to Vancouver’s Kitsilano Beach.
There was no semblance of order, said Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society commodore Bill McGuire, who steered a tub in the second annual event for a 21st finish. He saw the danger and went about trying to make the event safer for tubbers.
“I was completely petrified,” he said, with a laugh, telling of one instance where he lost sight of two tubbers that had been to his right. Then he looked down. “There was a big swell and the two of them were looking up at me, both in their tubs and a wave went over and sure enough they sank and came to the top.”
Here in the Harbour City, racing seaworthy bathtubs is a sport.
For 50 years, thousands of people have converged on downtown Nanaimo in late July to enjoy festivities, watch the sacrifice to the Bathtub gods or the burst of racing tubs from the start line.
In 1971, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were visiting the city and presented the Queen’s Plate to one of the tub pilots, and actor John Wayne visited the inner harbour in his yacht, Wild Goose, and was made an honorary governor of the Bathtub society, the society book says.
Jaime Garcia is heading into his 13th year at the race this July and looking for the win.
“It’s an adrenaline rush,” he said. “It’s the speed, it’s the endurance, it’s everything.”
But in the endurance race, with the big chops, you are also getting pounded for 36 miles, said Garcia, who says it takes an athlete and a special kind of character to ride in a tub.
“It’s a lot of mental and a lot of physical and if you don’t have the will, you won’t finish a race.”
Garcia raced his first tub with a jerry can gas tank in 2003, but ran out of fuel.
Five years into the event, he had his first finish and last year, he placed fourth overall. He was in the lead, he said, until he lost his grip on the handle and did a complete 360-degree turn.
It was all the other tubbers needed to get away from him.
“We are moving pretty quick. This boat will do 40 miles per hour,” he said, hand on his yellow and black racer.
Garcia doesn’t only compete, he builds racing tubs at his East Wellington shop.
The start of a new boat rests in a claw-foot cast-iron tub, waiting to be pulled out, while another two yellow boats are nearby – his and his daughter’s.
He shows a picture of himself, back to the camera and fist pumping high in the air to celebrate the win of his daughter who “cleaned up” last year, he said. She finished second in the stock class.
For him boat, building is an obsession, but it’s also about ensuring the event continues to grow.
“We can’t let it die, not after 50 years,” said Garcia, who calls it an odd sport but fun and with camaraderie among racers.
“How many people can say they’ve raced a bathtub?”
Champ defends tubbing title on new course. Photos, results, interviews… http://t.co/dguFPzQfRo #Nanaimo #bathtub pic.twitter.com/FcWnMPPEHm
— Greg Sakaki (@BulletinSports) July 26, 2015