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The Nanaimo-to-Vancouver bathtub race used to be a big deal, summer’s counterpoint to the mass insanity of the Polar Bear Swim on New Year’s Day.

Nanaimo’s flamboyant mayor, Frank Ney, would haul out his pirate costume and run around like Long John Silver. A couple of hundred people would spend countless hours in their garages or backyards building their own tub-boats. Thousands would show up at Kits Beach to watch the tubbers make landfall and race up the sand to ring the bell of victory.

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For some it was a very serious competition – the 1975 winner was disqualified for racing with a nine-horsepower motor rather than the maximum six. But it was also tongue-in-cheek — there were trophies for being the first bathtub to sink, and being the last tub to make it across the Strait of Georgia.

Photo by Nolan / PNG

Alas, the last Nanaimo-to-Vancouver bathtub race was held in 1996. But the Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society didn’t give up the ghost — they continued to race in a course around Nanaimo.