The Nanaimo Bathtub Races and Cory Parsons
Well this weekend was a great success. Over the last few weeks I have been heavily involved in getting Cory Parsons in the bathtub races. What a ride! Just last week, on the wednesday before the race, we got the bathtub in the water with Cory. We all waited to see if it was going to sink or float as we slowly lowered it into the sea. So far so good was my thinking as it seemed to sit atop of the water. Now the fun part….getting Cory into the tub. As luck would have it, once lowered into the boat the tub still managed to float. After a number of test runs, it was obvious that all the hard work that went into building and retro fitting this tub had paid off. Vartan of Ace Line Hauler in Nanaimo can’t be thanked enough. He had done a tremendous job getting this tub ready for Cory. Now for the day of the races!!! All 48 tubs were milling about the harbour when the gun went off, and the tubs started to fly out of the starting line. It wasn’t long before all the tubs had blasted off while Cory was still trying to get his tub to plane. But by the time Cory had left the bay, he had past almost half of his competitors. Cory was here to race!! He managed to continue to pass other tubbers, secure that his tub was safe, pushing it the extra mile. But then, as luck would have it, he hit a wave that sent the tub crashing into a wave and dislodging the motor. He was done….or was he? With a little TLC from his good friend who was operating our escort boat, Cory was off again. Things were going well until a pleasure boat, and I really would like to find out who this person was, cut our escort boat and Cory off resulting in a collision of our boats. Cory was now done. The steering had been dislodged and now the boat was going to be very hard to continue the rest of the 30 kilometer run. We were headed back to the beach.
That said, the day was a tremendous success! Cory had done what he set out to do. He had raced in the Nanaimo Bathtub Races, and had been able to show people that anything is possible. We even hit National News with CTV’s Sandie Rinaldo. What a great day it was. Again, I have to thank Mike Southwell and Vartan from Ace Line Hauler. This whole adventure couldn’t have been possible without you. Until next year….
