AX\island Publishers Newsmagazine August 29, 1990 FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND CLASSIC BOATS ON DISPLAY By SHIRLEY HEWETT This Week Contributor very Labour Day weekend, Victoria’s usually sedate Inner Har- bour bustles with activity as vintage vessels from many Pacific Northwest ports gather for the Vic- (VREB) Annual Classic Boat Festival. For three days, spectators, boat Owners and entertainers mingle in a carefree mix of music, merriment and nautical nostalgia. During the past 12 years, Vic- orians have discovered this fiaritime Mardi-Gras’ is pack- ed with laid-back family fun. From dawn through midnight, thousands of dock-walkers “ene this free fantasyland. m joining in a spirited sea- chanty chorus to a harbor tour pulling on the long oar of a cen- turies-old replica, this event of- feran activity to delight every age group. Along the promenade formed by Ship Point Wharf and the Empress Hotel Lower Causeway, there is lots to look at. Stars of the show are the 150 wooden boats, carefully restored and maintained, which their Sowners love to show-off in this “floating museum” setting. Pic- ture-perfect traditional ketches and schooners sport baggy wrinkles in their rigging, and | often hoist bright red sails at dockside. Power boats sparkle with varnished mahogany, hand-rubbed teak and polished brass. Bevelled and stained s glass windows glint in the sun- light. Costumed crews create a romantic image of bygone eras: lovely ladies twirl prim parasols, toria Real Estate Board’s JOLLY SAILORS aboard the schooner ROBERTSON Ii wave to admiring crowds at the 1988 Classic Boat Festival. ROBERTSON II will also be on show at this year’s festival and, as in past years, visitors are invited to open boat hours throughout the weekend. swashbuckling pirates strut in puffy pantalons, and sinister “sangsters’ swagger in black vests and hats. What stories these boats could tell if they could talk. Take, for example, Curtiss Gruye’s 93- foot double-decker Edwardian houseboat Lotus. This festival regular has been chosen as 1990's official sailpast salute vessel. The largest private west coast yacht when she was launched in Seattle in 1909, her fuel carrying capacity is enough to take her to Alaska, which she still visits regularly. She’s named for a fruit, enjoyed by the legendary “Lotus-eaters,” said to induce indolence and dreamy contentment. And Lotus’ inte- rior elegance reflects this leisured ambience of her origins: wicker cane furniture, oak floor- ing even in the wheelhouse (a former “smoking room”) and luxurious panelling, Persian carpets and lotus-flower light fixtures. Built as the summer home for a Seattle attorney, Lotus, like many other festival entrants, later fell on hard times, and served as a “boatel” during the 1962 Seattle World Fair before capsizing in Olym- pia in 1977. Gruye has com- pleted her restoration, including replanking (she has two 70-foot long fir planks above the water- line and one 80-foot plank below) and protecting her iron- bark keel with its lead sheath, a 1909 method of repelling teredos. While the 116-ton Lotus is uni- Photo by SHIRLEY HEWE que, more modest power craft range from small mirror- finished mahogany Chris Craft runabouts through family-sized cruisers, some used as liveaboards, like Victorian Irv Cormack’s 48 foot Hulakai Van- couver-built from cedar in 1928. Another cedar hull, the 42-foot Evensong, was built on our Gorge waterway in 1946 and is owned by David Losie. Continued on Page 3 _ HARD WORKING people enjoyed Labour Day holi- days of the past — THIS WEEK IN HISTORY looks at the Labour Day festivities of yesteryear. Page 7. INSIDE m@ MISS MANNERS: Dining and dashing isn’t proper dinner par- ty behavior — and when a dinner party invita- tion is received, says - Miss Manners, polite people don’t hem and haw. / Page 2. lm BASIC BLACK: Smooching. Necking. Bussing. Kissing. What- ever the activity is cal- led, it seems to be popu- lar. But it’s no longer only for love-sick pup- pies: it's now a way to get into the record books. / Page 4. HB DR. TOMORROW: Computers are still used for office work and other stressful as- pects of modern life. But they re also going onto the ocean, where they simplify the pro- cess of relaxing on a sailboat. / Page 5. FUNNY MAN Steve Manin stars in MY BLUE HEAVEN, which movie critic David Ryland reviews in Silver Screen. Page 11.