Calm seas made for a fast bathtub race in the waters off Nanaimo.
Trevor Short of Ladysmith won the Great International World Championship Bathtub Race on Sunday, July 27, finishing in one hour, 17 minutes.
"It was a good race today," he said. "It was about that two-to-three-foot chop that we kind of hoped for and expected and it luckily worked out for us."
He finished four minutes ahead of the runner-up, Jaime Garcia, but Short said there were some lead changes along the way and the difference ended up being the lines chosen by the tubbers.
"I was always watching behind and seeing boats coming and there was definitely a couple times when I almost lost it on the way home," he said.
Short also won last year and has won the great race three times, but said it's pretty cool to do it again and thanked his family and his tubbing family, and also praised the community spirit.
"It's huge," he said. "If we didn't have people excited for it, we wouldn't be able to do it."
Rounding out this year's top five fastest finishers were Brandon Leigh, Drew McDonald and Jordan Gadd.
This year's race attracted 42 competitors. One of the first-time racers was Anthony Morgan from New Westminster, racing as part of the United Association Local 170 team, who said he decided to take on the challenge in hopes that years from now, future grandchildren will be able to talk about their "crazy" grandpa racing a bathtub.
He said a lot of his practice was in calmer waters, so today's great race felt like the "real deal."
"My body was ready to give up halfway through the race, but mentally I just had to keep pushing through," he said. "So it's just as much mental endurance as it is physical endurance … It felt amazing to ring the bell because that was my goal."
The article will be updated with further race results as they become available.
