Celebration in 2010:
This year marks the 100th year of service to the maritime community by the vintage tug, Sand Man. The Foundation has chosen Saturday, August, 7, 2010 as the day for our centennial celebration.
Please join us for free birthday cake, shore-side activities, live music, and entertainment from mid-morning until late in the afternoon! Several other vintage tugboats will be joining Sand Man for the party. (Check the website for detailed schedule by mid-summer.)
While the usual location of the boat is adjacent to the Olympia Oyster House Restaurant, this event will be held at the Olympia Port Plaza which is located a couple blocks to the north. Take Capitol Blvd. all the way to its northern end at the Olympia Farmer's Market. Anthony's is just west of the Market, and the Plaza is behind the restaurant on the waterfront.
Highlights of 2009 (click event heading for pictures):
Altogether during 2009, Sand Man recorded 6,300 visitors to the boat. (This count is known to be low, because during busy events not everyone gets a chance to sign the guest book.) Cumulatively, during the past four and one-half years which the boat has been open to the public, more ethan 27,000 visitors have signed the book. The total includes visitors from all of the states and more than 50 countries.
Olympia Parade of Lights – December 2 & 5, 2009
The Sand Man participated in the annual Parade of Lights sponsored by the Olympia Yacht Club. The weather was clear and cold on both evenings for the 15 mile round trip tour of Budd Inlet with over 23 boats participating. The Sand Man was honored by the judges with a third place ‘Best Decorated’ boat award. The cruise included a lively and vocal crowd of merry wishers along Percival Landing, some shore-side fireworks near Boston Harbor and a flotilla of lighted kayaks on Saturday night.
Harbor Days, Sept. 5-6, 2009
As usual, Sand Man participated in the Harbor Days tug races over Labor Day. For the first time in many years, there was rain for the Labor Day races in early September. But, as always, the races were a lot of fun. Sand Man did not win its heat, but we had as much fun as any of the participants. More importantly, we had more than 600 folks visit the boat at the dock during the weekend.
Out-of-Town Events, Summer 2009
In June, we traveled up the Sound to the beautiful town of Gig Harbor for their annual maritime festival. This is a great weekend, which concludes with an impressive "Blessing of the Fleet" ceremony. About 750 visitors came on board the boat. Late in August, we retraced our wake and went a bit further north to attend Tacoma's Maritime Festival.
Olympia Wooden Boat Fair, May 6-7, 2009
Sand Man participated in the annual gathering of wooden boats at Percival Landing on May 9-10. The weather was great, and the crowds were large. There were well over 1,000 visitors who boarded the boat during the weekened fair. In addittion to receiving the "oldest boat" award, Sand Man was selected by the skippers of the participating vessels as the "Favorite Power Boat" an honor, indeed! Also, we were very pleased to have Chuck Fowler and Mark Freeman - authors of the new book "Tugboats on Puget Sound" - on the boat and signing copies of their book. If you don't have a copy yet, come visit our boat any weekend; we have them for sale for only $20.
Harbor Days, Olympia, WA, August 31, 2008
For some unknown reason, we were placed in the 2nd heat for today's races. Thus, we didn't get to race against our good friends Joe and Newt. We managed to place 4th out of six boats in our heat. We beat two much larger tugs, but three smaller ones were just a bit quicker to the finish line.
We had many visitors for the weekend. From Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, 830 folks signed the book. Visitors came from 7 different countries - Austria, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Mexico, and Scotland - and from 19 different states. Of course, most were local folks.
Financially, we did very well. Sold all of the T-shirts, most of the mugs, and nearly all of the new hats and golf shirts. A couple folks took the cash home for safe-keeping so we don't yet know how much we made in the way of merchandise sales and donations. But it is well above $600 (which will buy some needed fuel for the trip to Pt. Townsend next Thursday).
Thanks to all of the volunteers who helped to make this a great Harbor Days for Sand Man.
