Posted by Eagle Rock on WWBA Forum
August 5,6,7 several WWBA boats, Penelope Isle, Lady Allysha, Master, Ocean Guile, Precious Johainna ll, Eagle Rock were in attendance at the Richmond Maritime festival in Steveston. Each morning, HMCS Oriole, and the Steveston Lifeboat raised their flags at 8:00am with much pomp and ceremony. The Easthope powered gillnetter Eva showed off her mighty powerplant.
If crowds of people signify a success this surely was a successful festival, the public was allowed on the docks from 11:00 am till 6:00pm. They absolutely inundated our boats, they especially enjoyed the Penelope Isle, at times there were more than 20 people on Jean’s vessel, he was a very gracious and patient host. I will put some captions on the pictures to make some sense of them over the coming weeks. The festival’s committee were very generous, wine and food on the first evening, served in the Britannia Shipyard’s Blacksmith shop, welcoming kits with name tags that allowed us access pretty much anywhere at anytime The movie boat, Ocean Guile had their local MP on board for a photo op with Fred and Lynne.
A notable absence of a picture of one especially interesting exhibit, for the first time ever the two brothers who built ships wheels(helms) for over fifty years had their equipment and a video of their manufacturing process on display. Wheels from a foot in diameter to 6 feet were produced by these guys on equipment they built themselves. Native singers and dancers, Japanese drum music, carving displays, kids building fish, girls and guys walking around with fish, mermaids, buskers playing music.
The event was quite large in it’s physical size, and really took quite some time to see everything that was being done and exhibited. The numbers of volunteers to keep everything moving, neat and tidy was quite extraordinary. A note Lynne sent much later than when this was first written, the Richmond committee that put on this wonderful festival estimates 35,000 people attended in the 3 days it was open. Because there was no fee to attend, that’s why this is only an estimate.