PORT ANGELES — Live ducks at Lincoln Park’s pond are not unusual, but the more than 30,000 rubber ducks expected for the 23rd annual Great Olympic Peninsula Duck Derby will be a first.
Festivities will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday at the pond at Lincoln Park at 1900 W. Lauridsen Blvd. in Port Angeles with family entertainment.
The main duck race will begin at 2:30 p.m. It will be preceded at 2 p.m. by the Bub and Alice Olsen Very Important Duck Race.
Those who “adopt” rubber ducks for the race have chances to win 42 prizes worth more than $25,000, with the top prize a 2012 Toyota Tacoma pickup or Toyota Corolla provided by Wilder Toyota.
Proceeds will benefit the Olympic Medical Center Foundation and the Sequim Rotary Club’s charitable projects.
Organizers expect to sell more than 30,000 duck tickets for the race, said Bruce Skinner, executive director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation.
The derby, which was relocated to Lincoln Park this year after being displaced from the Nippon Paper Industries USA canal, will provide a challenge.
How will ducks move?
In the past, ducks were moved by tidal action in the Nippon canal.
But the Lincoln Park pond has little or no current, providing a challenge for organizers to find a way for the ducks dumped into the water to make it to the finish line.
“We are depending on momentum to get them halfway there,” said George Hill, director of events for the Olympic Medical Center Foundation.
For the remainder of the trip, the ducks will get a helping hand from the Port Angeles Fire Department.
Firefighters will deploy a fire hose to keep the ducks moving in the right direction, Hill said.
Such tactics had been used in the past when the wind was stronger than the tides in the Nippon canal, Skinner said.
The race was moved to the Lincoln Park pond because the parking lot where the festivities were held is now a staging area for the Nippon biomass cogeneration expansion construction project.
The race will be held at Lincoln Park for at least two years or until the canal area is available again, Hill said.
Events on Sunday
The Kids’ Pavilion will open at 1 p.m. This year, there will be no bounce room, but other children’s activities will be in full swing, Hill said.
Holding the event at the park means the event will be more family-friendly, with plenty of space for kids to run, he said.
KONP 1450 AM Radio will broadcast live, and refreshments will be available.
The Bub and Alice Olsen Very Important Duck Race — also known as the VID Race and featuring oversized rubber ducks — will follow an hour later.
Businesses and individuals, including those from outside the North Olympic Peninsula who do business with local companies, can purchase special VID ducks emblazoned with their logo for $250 and $500 each.
A VID Pavilion will be open for food and drinks for VID duck owners and for those who purchase 50 or more ducks in the main duck race, which will begin a half-hour after the VID race when thousands of rubber ducks slide from a dump truck into the pond.
Each duck ticket costs $5; $25 will buy six ducks.
For each rubber duck that’s “adopted,” the purchaser receives a ticket with a printed number that corresponds to the number on the duck.
All of the numbered ducks are dumped into the Lincoln Park Pond on race day, and the “owners” of the first 42 ducks to cross the finish line will win prizes.
Tickets available
Duck tickets can be purchased at the Peninsula Daily News, 305 W. First St.
They also are available from members of the OMC Foundation, many Olympic Medical Center employees, members of the Sequim Rotary Club and Forks’ Soroptimist International of the Olympic Rainforest, and volunteers.
In 2011, 31,329 ducks were “adopted.”
During the past 22 years, the race has raised more than $1,850,000.
For more information, phone the OMC Foundation at 360-417-7144 or visit www.omhf.org.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
