Commencement Bay Maritime Fest

Tacoma, WA Sept. 15, 2002
Having never posted tug racing photos from Tacoma's maritime festival on this web site before, I thought this year, 2002, might be a good time to start.

The Commencement Bay Maritime Fest is a relative newcomer on the scene, less then ten years old, yet the city's waterfront community has a long tradition of tugboat and steamboat racing -- going back over a hundred years.

The setting for the Tacoma event is perfect, with activities taking place along Thea Foss Waterway, named, of course, after the woman who told the old man to get out there with that row boat and bring those square riggers and schooners in here!

Anyway, in recent years, there has been a good turnout of boats for the Maritime Fest, but this time around, due to the economy and the increasing cost of fuel, and because many of the working boats had jobs this day, not many tugs showed up for the races.

Skippers present decided that for the sake of the crowd, they would all parade out along the 2.5 mile race course, then those that wanted to, would race back to the dock.

The problem is, there is an old tradition on Puget Sound -- if you put a bunch of tugboats in a straight line, they are not about to parade like a bunch of old rust-buckets -- they're going to race!

So, as a group of boats passed Tacoma's legendary Stadium High School, the invisible starting gun went off and the throttles went to Full Speed Ahead!

In this photo, HENRIETTA FOSS jumps out in front, with JOE, ELF, PARTHIA and MARLIN II not far behind.

As the racing became serious, the usual rivals jumped out ahead. CAYOU (center) came from behind, passing the others and catching up to frontrunner PARTHIA. The more powerful, MARLIN II, normally racing in a higher class, was easily able to grab the lead.

For the other two, it was neck and neck for the remainder of the course. PARTHIA edged out CAYOU by a nose, then it was all over.

Like obidient schoolkids that have just been caught smoking behind the building, the boats paraded slowly back to the dock.
After tying up, Everything settled down, while
over at the museum ...

The festival had some terrific dragon boat races, and a loud and fast speedboat race with one or two classic cigarette boats. There is also an excellent maritime art show and the combination maritime museum and classic wooden boat shop where boats are restored is open.

Hopefully, things will return to a resemblance of normalcy next year and the races will be back to their old competitive self. Stay tuned to these web pages.