Bathtub Racing - Insane Tradition or Jolly Good Time

Bathtub racing.

This year marks the 44th anniversary of the first bathtub race in Nanaimo, BC, the birthplace of bathtub racing the world over.

A fun-filled event for the whole family involving fireworks, a parade, city-wide festivities and lest we forget, the tubbed racing itself.  Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Tradition is a strange beast, is it not?  What one person might deem insane, another chalks it up as a necessary ritual on an otherwise dull July Saturday.  What possessed those first racers 44 years ago to strap the old clawfoot to a pair of waterskis, lash the whole thing to Grandpa’s Evinrude, and fling themselves pell-mell into the Georgia Strait?

Is it the same thing that sends Spaniards sprinting down the streets of Pamplona year after year?  I can only imagine that day. 

Pablo: Hey man, I’m bored.  What do you want to do?

Jose: Play cards? Do a little gardening?

Pablo: No.  Let’s go make some bulls crazy and then run away from them down narrow city streets.

Jose: Yes, I think that sounds like a good idea.  I will join you.

Traditions can hit much closer to home than the bathtubbers.  Why is it, year after year, that we choke down Grandma Hepzebah’s Christmas pudding?  Would you serve that mess any other time of year?  To your worst enemy?

You:  Ah, hello, Bobby the Bully from my third grade class who used to make fun of me for not having the right brand of shoes.

Bobby: Jim, hello.  I’d like to make amends.

You: Of course, of course.  May I offer you some pudding?

Bobby:  Ooh, yes please.

You:  It’s a generic sludge, choc-a-bloc with maraschino cherry carcasses, bits of nuts, I swear there are rocks in the recipe, at least gravel, and I’m going to soak the whole thing in enough brandy to get a whale shark drunk and light it on fire.

Bobby:  (moment of silence) Your shoes still suck.  (runs away)

We choke it down once a year, and then sneak away to various rooms in our celebratory houses to devour copious amounts of stocking chocolate to wash away the foul paste of Hepzebah’s Last Insult.

If you manage to see someone loading themselves into one of these bathtubs this year, or any year for that matter, send them well wishes.  They are following in the long-hallowed footsteps of insanity set before them by tradition, and our need to follow suit.

Next year, I’m going to tie a rope around a bull’s manly bits, tie myself to his back, and hope I can hold on for about eight seconds.  That should start something new.

Wait...that’s been done?