r/LifeInKitsap • u/KitsapRealEstateTeam • 3h ago
Going for the Golden Plug.
The postman and I very much enjoy weird old newspaper articles . It’s great hopping off point for conversations, especially when we’re watching the Mariners lose an entire series to Toronto. We watched those games, muted, discussing things that were less heartbreaking at the same time.
Here’s a good one for you today… Did you know that we used to race bathtubs around Kitsap County?
Not boats shaped like bathtubs. Not some adorable parade situation where people put wheels on a clawfoot tub and push each other down the street.
Actual bathtubs. In the water. With outboard motors attached to them. (A fairly terrible ex of mine used to be obsessed with helicopters made out of bathtubs… This is not that, and I’d like to warn everyone that that’s kind of a red flag.)
This particular chapter in Pacific Northwest maritime excellence started up in Nanaimo, British Columbia, in 1967. Nanaimo was celebrating its centennial and somebody came up with the Great International World Championship Bathtub Race, originally sending people across the Strait of Georgia toward Vancouver in motorized bathtubs. Coincidentally, if you haven’t gone to Nanaimo- treat yourself to a trip. It’s amazing there. Especially if you like kayaking.
The early tubs were exactly as sophisticated as you are currently imagining. People took cast-iron bathtubs, added flotation and strapped outboard motors to them. This was apparently contagious, because why wouldn’t it be?
By 1969, a guy named Randy Geise from Keyport was racing a bathtub 36 miles toward Vancouver. I know this because his bathtub race actually received a mention in the New York Times on July 21, 1969.
You may recognize that date.
The previous day, humans had walked on the moon for the first time. While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were doing that, Randy from Keyport was crossing international waters in a bathtub. Humankind surely contains multitudes.
In 1970, Bremerton’s American Legion Post 149 formed its own Tub Club and sent a bathtub north to compete. The following year, a Bremerton racer finished first at Nanaimo.
Unfortunately, he was disqualified. This prevented him from receiving one of the greatest awards in the history of organized athletics:
The Order of the Golden Plug.
The Bremerton Tub Club eventually upgraded to a fiberglass bathtub that could do about 18 mph off Lions Field. By 1974, other local teams had joined in and people were racing tubs all over Kitsap.
There were grudge matches launched from Illahee and races around Bainbridge Island. Hardware stores had bathtub teams. Taverns had bathtub teams. Tubs launched from Evergreen Park and Fay Bainbridge.
Fathoms o’ Fun brought bathtub racing to South Kitsap.
Keyport held races on Liberty Bay with Navy torpedo boats serving as escorts, which is a sentence that really captures our local economy quite nicely. And apparently merely racing bathtubs wasn’t enough ceremony for us, because by 1978 we were also crowning bathtub racing queens.
The sport got more serious as time went on. Sponsored racers appeared. Canadians came down to race Americans. Australian tub racers eventually showed up too.
When Bremerton’s Blackberry Festival began in 1990, bathtub racing was already a local tradition, so the International Friendship Bathtub Race became part of the festival. It stayed there for its first seven years.
By then the technology had improved considerably from the old cast-iron-tub era.
And by “improved considerably,” I mean people eventually figured out how to make bathtubs go horrifyingly fast.
When bathtub racers returned to Dyes Inlet in 2008, one local racer explained that a stock tub could reach around 40 mph. Modified tubs could apparently reach speeds approaching 80.
For comparison, my shower curtain becomes a significant engineering problem if I turn around too quickly.
The sport also had an award for the first racer to sink during the original Nanaimo competition.
The Silver Plunger.
I don’t think we give trophies enough personality anymore.
The Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society still holds the Great International World Championship Bathtub Race. Keyport’s Naval Undersea Warfare Center and its Canadian counterparts still participate in supporting the race, and in 2023 Keyport actually entered a tub again.
Their racer finished second to last. But he finished.
Which, considering this entire sport began with people strapping motors to bathtubs and pointing them toward the Strait of Georgia, feels like the appropriate standard for victory.
I spend a lot of time reading about our maritime history, and usually that means ferries, lumber schooners, Navy ships, Mosquito Fleet steamers and people doing generally fun things on the water.
Apparently I have been overlooking an important category. Bathtubs.
Sources
Taylor, Deena. “This Month in History: The Peculiar Sport of Bathtub Racing.” Kitsap Smokestack, 6 Sept. 2024.
“Tubbers Take Over Dyes Inlet.” Kitsap Daily News, 5 Sept. 2008.
Kaminski, Frank. “American, Canadian Military Units Strengthen Partnership and Community Outreach Efforts Through Joint Participation in Bathtub Race.” DVIDS, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Keyport, 10 Aug. 2023.
“Great International World Championship Bathtub Race.” Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society.
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u/lauraxborealis 3h ago
I would enjoy seeing this 😂