Bathtub Racing

Back in the seventies bathtub racing was quite a popular sport. Nanaimo used to host the greatest race of all from Nanaimo to Vancouver, a distance of nearly fifty miles over rough water. The Canadian National Exhibition also held races every year.

Pembroke was planning special Sesquicentennial celebrations that year and included was a bathtub race. Some of my friends and myself got together and built a bathtub boat to specs and entered it in the big race at the Marina. I was the pilot and managed to get around the course fastest due to the help from our mechanic who was a whizz at motors. I won the cup and $300 which I split among the team members.

The next year My late friend Al Morrison sponsored me in the CNE races . Here all boats were exactly alike and since there were many competitors you had to qualify for the title. This time I was lucky to make it to the finals. That year the great Boston Bruins defenseman Bobby Orr was the official starter. He was a boy playing pond hockey when I was principal of a school in Magnetawan. He was so outstanding even as a boy of twelve he played on the adult intermeditate team before going to Junior.

In between races I was talking to Bobby about old time hockey in Parry Sound and having a laugh at the conditions during those early days with outdoor hockey when the whistle went for the final. There were eight boats and when I looked at the numbers four (4) stood out. Bobby Orrs number with the Bruins. Another person had the same idea and we had a tussle for the boat. I was bigger and got my way.

It was a moving start and I was crowded out so I plunged into a gap and at the gunshot was clear. Three times around the long course and with my motor sputtering I managed to cross the line a little ahead of the rest. A bag of donated prizes were given and the small lunch with drinks completed the day and my career as a bathtub racer. It was fun.