Woodies Wow Maple Bay
A fixture on the May long weekend for nearly two decades, Maple Bay Marina’s Wooden Boat Festival this year drew nearly three dozen small craft, workboats and yachts to southeast Vancouver Island – along with hundreds of spectators who toured the docks, talked with boat owners and voted for their favourites.
Now in its 19th year, the festival is a rendezvous for wooden boat owners and a major attraction for locals and visitors to Maple Bay. The event also included a show and demonstration of radio-controlled ship models that ranged from tugboats and classic runabouts to reproductions of warships.
Despite a damp forecast, the sun mostly shone throughout the weekend and encouraged steady crowds of dock-walkers. The marina treated owners to a Friday afternoon meet-and-greet, Sunday and Monday morning coffee on the docks, and a Sunday afternoon awards presentation.
The “people’s choice” award went to Sandavore, an immaculate yacht conversion of a Wahl fishboat; runner-up was the micro-tug Lady Bug. Among the models, the spectators’ choice was a super-detailed replica of the Second World War corvette HMCS Nanaimo.
During the festival, it was also announced that the marina has earned re-certification as a “four-anchor” clean facility under the Georgia Strait Alliance’s Clean Marine BC program.
“Maple Bay Marina has gone well beyond the minimum requirements to protect the marine environment,” said the GSA’s Michelle Young as she made the presentation to marina owners Dave and Carol Messier. The marina incorporates extensive permanent and transient moorage, a large shipyard with marine trades and services, yacht brokerage, float homes, the Mariner’s Market and the Shipyard Pub.
