Rainy weather doesn't keep participants, spectators from Opening Day

Two hundred people gathered on the velvety green lawn outside the Seattle Yacht Club, their white patent-leather shoes and starched white pants bright as fresh meringue — until it began to rain.

And then all that had been white turned a shade of gray that matched the mercurial sky.

But it was Opening Day, the annual nautical extravaganza that marks the beginning of boating season on Puget Sound, so these sailors didn't seem to mind getting a little wet.

"Please. A rainy day never kept us off the water," said Lauren Carrosino, 16, the yacht club's junior secretary. "This is Seattle. What do you expect?"

After the yacht club's formal ceremony, Carrosino and a handful of other club members traded their white slacks and navy blazers for candy-colored rain slickers and headed for the Montlake Cut.

There, hundreds more people — boaters, rowers and kids — lined the rails from Portage Bay to the Montlake Bridge to watch the crew races and festooned boats scoot by.

Seattle's Opening Day is the largest floating parade in the world, lasting hours, and this year it included more than 300 boats.

Denise Griffen came from Billings, Mont., to watch the crew races and visit her kids, Brandon Hoff, 26, and Nicole Hoff, 23.

"I came out here last year, and it was so much fun I decided to make it an annual thing," said Griffen, who says she's a UW fan.

And was a good thing for her that the Huskies cleaned up. The men and women's crew teams won both the 2008 Cascade and Windermere Cups. The men beat out a team from Poland and the U.S. Naval Academy.

A few hundred hollering fans lined the finish line, their excitement egged on by the UW marching band's gyrating brass section and a dancing Husky mascot whose gray fur was mud-flecked and matted with rain. And no one — not even the high-kicking cheerleaders in white skirts, whose bare calves were streaked with mud — seemed to mind.

After all, if there's going to be a damper on boating season, it's not going to be the weather. It's going to be the gas prices.

"They're going to cripple it," said John Helbig, who lives aboard his 40-foot ketch at the Poulsbo Yacht Club. "It's definitely going to cut short people's cruising this year. People just won't be able to afford it."

Ted and Cecilia LaVigne, who live on Camano Island and own a 31-foot power boat, The TLC, aren't quite as worried. They still plan on cruising as far north as Cortes Island, B.C., but just "zigzagging less than we usually do," Cecilia LaVigne said.

"Honestly, I hate to say it, but gas is the least expensive thing you have to worry about when you own a boat," said Ted LaVigne, agreeing with the adage that a boat is no more than a hole in the water into which you pour money. "It's worth it, anyway."

At least a few dozen twentysomethings picnicked on the soggy grass along the Cut, seemingly oblivious to both crew races and gas prices and ready to party.

"It's our annual 'Dress Yacht-y and Get Snotty' party,' " said Jeff Granger, 29, who has come to the opening-day festivities for the three years. Both Granger and his friend, Amy Rasmussen, 24, wore white slacks and navy-blue V-neck sweaters.

A handful of their other friends dressed in mock-preppy yachting gear and sipped mimosas from stainless-steel Thermoses.

"Oh, this old thing?" said Rasmussen, referring to her monogrammed sweater and starched white pants, both of which were quickly soaking through with rain. "Dah-ling, I was going to wear this anyway. Perfect for a rainy Saturday morning."

After a couple of hours, the friends packed up their umbrellas, brushed the wet grass off their hands and headed to Red Robin to "recuperate after a hard day of yachting," one of them said, with a sigh. "Life is so tough."

Haley Edwards: 206-464-2745 or hedwards@seattletimes.com