SEQUIM — After what happened last year, you can’t blame the float builders for focusing on water. Lots of it.
“Sail away and discover the treasures of Sequim” is the theme of the 2008 Irrigation Festival float, parade and related revelry — and a brand-new rig, replete with waves and a realistic sailing ship, was unveiled Wednesday night.
The festival’s previous float, which appeared in parades around the Pacific Northwest for some 20 years, was destroyed in a fire on Sept. 8.
No one was hurt in the blaze, which broke out in the day-use area of Dosewallips State Park when the float was on its way home from the Hoquiam Loggers’ Playday parade.
The cause, firefighters said, was probably an electrical short.
In October, Borden bought a 1985 Ford station wagon for $300, and added a $9,000 trailer onto that; Brad Lato and Allform Welding constructed a frame, and Guy Horton, a festival organizer and sometime Elvis Presley impersonator, designed a realistic sailing ship to fit the theme.
Some 16 weeks hence, the float is fully fledged: 22 feet long, 13 feet high and 13 feet wide.
