PORT ANGELES — The foul smell of bunker fuel didn’t keep hundreds of residents from flocking to Ediz Hook on Sunday to watch rubber ducks race up the Daishowa America mill canal.
Many of the spectators at the 13th annual Great Olympic Peninsula Duck Derby didn’t even know bunker had been spilled into Port Angeles Harbor during an early morning fueling operation.
But event organizer Bruce Skinner knew about the 6:45 a.m. spill.
“It scared us a little, but we knew booms were coming,” he said.
Skinner said the booms were placed across the mouth of the canal before tidal action could push the oil and foul the Duck Derby.
And the race was on.
By 5 p.m., hundreds of residents had flocked to the canal to watch 22,133 rubber ducks compete beak to beak in the largest Great Olympic Peninsula Duck Derby to date.
Fowl take to water
Prior to the main event, 101 corporate sponsors’ rubber fowl took to the water for the Very Important Duck Race.
West Coast Paper of Seattle won the race, earning the company an all expenses paid two-day trip for two to Las Vegas.
Company Manager Rick Smith was excited about the win.
“I’m going to hold a drawing for the employees,” he said, noting one of his lucky workers will be heading to Las Vegas.
West Coast Paper works with Olympic Paper to supply Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles.
Like the main event, the corporate race had the largest field in the event’s history.
The previous record was 82 ducks during the 2001 event.
The Very Important Duck Race set the stage for the 6 p.m. main event.
With the firing of a miniature cannon by 7-year-old Tyler Rixon of Port Angeles and his grandfather Dick Kent, the rubber ducks hit the water.
About 10 minutes later, it was over and Dry Creek Elementary School Principal Mary Hebert had won the top prize — a 2002 Toyota truck, courtesy of Wilder Toyota of Port Angeles.
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