The Seattle Outboard Association will be hosting two days of outboard hydroplane races this weekend at Thornton A. Sullivan Park located on Silver Lake in south Everett. Races are free to watch and will take place from roughly 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 4 and Sunday, June 5.
The association’s first annual Howard Shaw Memorial Regatta features junior racing classes for youths ages 9-17 driving stock boats and adult racing classes that include larger and faster boats in stock/modified and pro categories that can fly across the water at speeds up to 90 mph. Each race will consist of three laps on an approximately 3/4 mile course.
Silver Lake is a 104-acre body of water that has three City of Everett parks with public access including Thornton A. Sullivan Park on the west side of the lake, Hauge Homestead Park on the southeastern side of the lake and Green Lantern Park on the northeastern side of the lake.
Thornton A Sullivan Park will have limited beach access during the event. The park will be open for spectators and a portion of the public beach will remain open during and after the event. Public parking will be limited. In addition, the disc golf course will be open to the public this weekend but with a limited number of holes.
Annual hydroplane races have been held on Silver Lake for more than 60 years, although this marks only the second year that the regatta will be a two-day event.
These races are disgusting! Motor boats are not on Silver Lake and it is a mystery how this atrocity against nature is allowed every single year. The noise for 2 solid days is at an illegal decimal! The ducks, geese, turtles, fish and every bird species around this lake are effected by this event. Nesting eagles go silent, hummingbirds who were abundant all but vanish, ducks lose their eggs and hatchlings, turtles all but vanish until maybe a lucky survivor will be seen again mid summer and this is just a morsel of the destruction! This event needs to stop destroying Silver Lake!
Not only that but the shore lines around the lake have been pulverized by giant houses built for the rich that literally devour the natural habitat to point of unrecognizable devastation. Not to mention the run off of toxins that poison whats left of the watery homestead. Lawn fertilizers, motor oil. soaps and detergents all in the name of a “lakefront property” with “a view” that only someone among the $ elite $ would be privileged enough to afford. What a price the animals all pay when the lake gets infested with the evils of man. Looks like comfort and entertainment are both fugitives of the fun police. Ok Im done and I hope I didnt sound like I was Wine-ing Dee Dee but lets remember where we came from before we start pointing any cat tails at other people and make sure we buy a house far away from the lake that we cant here those boats or we might be effecting the fish that feed the nesting Eagles!
PS: Fuddy Duddy!