Victoria Classics shine Labour Day weekend
Aug 8, 2019
Photo credit: James Holkko
The Maritime Museum of BC is proud to host the annual Victoria Classic Boat Festival in Victoria’s beautiful inner harbour, Friday, August 30 – Sunday, September 1 2019!
For over 40 years, the Victoria Classic Boat Festival has showcased classic boats from all over the Pacific Northwest each Labour Day Weekend. Each year, approximately 10,000 visitors tour the docks and the boats on display. In 2017, the Maritime Museum of BC took over operations of the Festival, incorporating marine-related exhibitions and family-friendly programs into the weekend’s activities.
Since 1977 the Victoria Classic Boat Festival, initially a “one-time happening”, has become one of Victoria’s most popular annual events. Admirers from all over the world flock to the Inner Harbour’s floats in front of the Empress Hotel each Labour Day weekend to admire as many as 130 of yesteryear’s most beautiful boats.
In addition to serving as a celebratory gathering, the festival serves the development of the classic boat community by offering an optional judging service. Festival’s judges, each an expert in their field, stand by to 
meticulously inspect participant’s vessels, offering guidance and suggestions to those owners dedicated to the correct restoration of their vessels. Many boats return improved each year until they reach the pinnacle of their restoration and are recognized at the awards dinner that caps each year’s festival. In this way the festival contributes in a very tangible way to the health of the classic boat community.
The Festival is run by Museum staff, Board members, and dedicated volunteers. Community, corporate, and business sponsors provide enormous support to the Museum and it’s mission to promote and preserve BC’s maritime experience and heritage and to engage people with this ongoing story.
The Honorary Commodore for the 2019 classic is Howard White
BC author Howard White
No publisher has trumpeted the romance of Canada’s western coast more than Howard White,” wrote the Globe and Mail in 1988. He started a coastal newspaper in 1970, began publishing the west coast journal Raincoast Chronicles in 1972, and founded Harbour Publishing in 1974. To date his company has been for publishing some 1000 books about British Columbia, including such well-known titles as Westcoasters: Boats That Built BC by Tom Henry, The Encyclopedia of West Coast Place Names by Andrew Scott, Keepers of the Light by Donald Graham, Fishing With John by Edith Iglauer, From the Wheelhouse by Doreen Armitage, Dangerous Waters by Keith Keller, Ships of Steel by T.A. McLaren, Legacy in Wood by Ryan Wahl and Boats in My Blood by Barrie Farrell.
Howard has been equally active as a writer, with poetry, articles, and fiction to his credit. His thirteen books to date include Raincoast Chronicles First Five, Raincoast Chronicles Six Ten, Spilsbury’s Coast (with Jim Spilsbury), The Accidental Airline (With Jim Spilsbury), Writing In The Rain, The Ghost In The Gears, Raincoast Chronicles Eleven Up (editor/contributor), The As a publisher, his major project to date has been The Encyclopedia of British Columbia (2000). Howard has won numerous awards including the Canadian Historical Society Career Award, the Roderick Haig-Brown Award for BC History, the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the Order of British Columbia, an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Victoria and the Order of Canada. He has twice been president of the Association of Book Publishers of BC and was the first winner of the James Douglas Publisher of the Year Award.
Having grown up on the water, first on Nelson Island then in Pender Harbour (where he still lives), Howard has been around boats all his life. Cruising this coast of endless wonders in his 37 Farrell is his favourite pastime, one he never gets enough of. He is a firm believer that when one’s allotted time on earth is being counted up, all days spent out on the water are deducted from the total. 
