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Centennial Beach is wrong place for bathtub race

Editor: The poor attendance and large numbers of empty parking spots attested to how poorly last Sunday’s bathtub race at Centennial Beach was received. However well intentioned, this second running was an even greater misstep than last year’s.

Editor:

The poor attendance and large numbers of empty parking spots attested to how poorly last Sunday’s bathtub race at Centennial Beach was received. However well intentioned, this second running was an even greater misstep than last year’s. Here’s why;

By trying to stage a boat race in a bay that crucially lacks water for most of the day they must have known things would get off to a rocky start. The low tides meant running the race late in the day and pushed it to the southern end of the beach next to homes.

The Rotary Club of Tsawwassen had a large part of this hugely popular beach (and much of its parking) sectioned off; their plan limited families from enjoying a quiet picnic, from paddling with their kids, from swimming, from playing volleyball, etc.

Bike riders and walkers had to negotiate cables and dodge motor boats being pushed towards the water for launch. Rotary and their friends at Delta had to “encourage” Metro Vancouver (which manages the park) into agreeing to this event. So, perhaps against Metro’s better judgement, they went along with it.

Rotary also brought in the Eastlink media trailer to provide some noise (which it did, in spades!). They parked it on the grass next to the park’s south entrance and right beside the residences. For over nine hours its noisy generator roared at full throttle. A little later they added the booming voice of the race announcer who tried to interest the spectators into watching the distant boats. On top of all that their DJ cranked up his brand of bland music. You could not escape this cacophony even when more than a block away.

It is a real mystery who Rotary were targeting with this ill-conceived event. Had it been sunny that day there would have been the usual throngs of people trying to go to the beach but they would have been frustrated to find that the Rotary Club had cordoned off some 150 prime parking spots for the use of the organizers and participants.

As it turned out this was one of the least busy weekends so far this summer, which goes to show the spectacle of middle-aged men in toy boats does not have a widespread appeal. Ironically, they did succeed in making it quite easily the noisiest weekend in the 13 years that we’ve lived here.

For these and many other reasons, the small but beautiful Centennial Beach is the wrong venue for this event and with the inconsiderate manner in which it was organized, this year’s bathtub race needs to be the last.

Thérèse Malim