Rough sea conditions in the 2024 world championship bathtub race off Nanaimo cracked qathet-region competitor Melvin Mitchell’s tub, resulting in him having to return to shore.
With winds blowing at more than 20 knots from the southeast on July 28, and seas at more than four feet where Mitchell was racing, there were only 12 finishers among the 41 entrants in the race.
“A lot of us didn’t finish,” said Mitchell. “It was pretty rough racing this year. There were a few broken motors and it cracked our tub.”
Mitchell said where he was, the waves were four feet tall, and past Entrance Island, in the Strait of Georgia, sea conditions got as high as seven feet.
“I was jumping waves and trying to stay in the swell,” said Mitchell. “You had to hang on for what it was worth.”
Mitchell said he hit one wave funny and pinched a nerve in his neck.
“For a little while, it felt like when you wake up in the morning and have a kink in your neck,” said Mitchell. “Every time I hit a wave funny, I’d be wincing out there. I couldn’t use my head properly.”
Mitchell said because the structure of his tub was significantly affected by the sea conditions, he made the decision to return to shore rather than risk losing his bathtub.
“Going down in those conditions would be a hard rescue,” said Mitchell. “Most of the guys didn’t make it. “There were some good racers out there.”
Mitchell said the winner of this year’s race was Trevor Short, from Ladysmith, finishing the course in one hour, 38 minutes and 13 seconds, which is well off the record pace of one hour and 45 seconds, set in 2023. Short has previously won the race, in 2018, and has been runner-up in 2019 and 2023.
Mitchell said Short will be coming to qathet region for a race Mitchell is sponsoring off Gibsons Beach on August 17, starting around midday. Mitchell said usually what happens, because the race here is two weeks after the world championship in Nanaimo, the guys who make it here are the ones who weren’t beaten up in the world championship race.
“As the season goes, we get a buildup to the big race, a lot of them get smacked down in the big race, and that’s why our numbers are lower in Powell River,” said Mitchell. “People have broken tubs and broken motors and people still hurt yet.
“We’ll try to get our tub patched up for the race here. We don’t give up that easy.”
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