Saturday in Seattle: Opening Day of the yachting season

OUR FRIENDS AT SEATTLE YACHT CLUB are rightfully proud of their Opening Day, the official start to Seattle's boating season. Indeed it has become Seattle's Rite of Spring on the level (if not exceeding) opening day at the ballpark. The annual event has been sponsored by Seattle Yacht Club for many years, and has grown into a community wide-celebration of boating and Seattle's uniquely beautiful waterways. Festivities include a morning of crew races, yacht racing, and, of course, the Grand Opening Day Boat Parade, which starts at noon on the first Saturday in May with the blast of a cannon and the raising of the Montlake Bridge.

Opening Day in Seattle is a family affair for the entire community. Families decorate their boats for the festivities and parades; non-boaters spread blankets on the shoreline and spend hours watching and picnicking.

Kimball Livingston, our longtime friend, esteemed yachting journalist, and immediate past commodore of St. Francis YC, is in Seattle with his wife, Lourdes, enjoying the festivities this weekend as a guest of SYC.

This afternoon Kimball snapped the two photos below. He says of the first, "Against the backdrop of the University of Washington's Huskies Stadium, boats moor along the 'log boom' for tomorrow's rowing races and boat parade that take place along the narrow Montlake Cut between Lake Washington and Lake Union."

With this second photo Kimball said, "One of many student parties painting new cheerleading signs in advance of tomorrow's inter-club rowing races." From the color, they must be UW students. Go Huskies!

Details in this Seattle Times article from a couple days ago.