By Kat Bryant

Grays Harbor News Group

Rusty Scupper’s Pirate Daze has a new captain this year.

The 19th annual summer event is being organized by the Half Moon Bay Pirates, a Westport nonprofit led by Rose Jensen and Nancy Holmes.

Rosie Litterer, of the South Beach Buccaneers, stepped down late last year as board president of Pirate Daze.

“The board had pretty much disbanded. It was down to just her and the treasurer and one other person,” Jensen said. “They just couldn’t put on that big an event by themselves.”

Upon hearing Pirate Daze might be in peril, Jensen walked across the street to start talking with Litterer about yielding the helm to the Half Moon Bay Pirates. (They are neighbors in Westport.)

“Our group’s mission is to help children of all ages and abilities, and to promote our community,” said Jensen. “So it just seemed to fit right in.”

Over the ensuing weeks, “there was a lot of confusion and a lot of back-and-forth,” she said. “And then someone put on Facebook that Rusty Scupper’s Pirate Daze was no longer.”

By that point, she said, her group had agreed to take on the responsibility. So they posted Jan. 9 that “Rusty Scupper is happening. Half Moon Bay Pirates will take it over.”

Nancy Holmes is this year’s event committee chairwoman and volunteer coordinator, and Jensen is dealing with the vendors. Both expressed gratitude that Litterer remains heavily involved during this transitional period.

“She’s working with entertainment, because she’s been involved with that for so long and knows the people and everything,” said Holmes. “She’s been a great help.”

“She’s helping us to get through it for the first year, kind of teach us what we’re doing — because obviously we don’t know what we’re doing!” laughed Jensen. “She’s been doing it for 18 years, and we just jumped in blindfolded with both feet.”

There are still some legal complexities to be sorted out.

“We’ve discussed this with a lawyer, and they said Rusty Scupper has to disband their corporation … for us to be able to do this,” said Jensen. “I’m still working with Rosie on that, to get that straightened out. And in the meantime we’re just chugging along, putting the event together.”

Litterer did not respond to messages requesting her comments for this story.

“It’s important to Westport. It’s the biggest event of the year for our merchants here,” said Jensen. “We can’t just let it go away.”

The usual business sponsors are on board for this year, and “we have a lot of backing from the city, which is good. We’re hoping that will breathe some new life into getting volunteers,” she said.

“We can get up to 20,000 people in Westport during that weekend. It’s a big, big deal,” she added. “So it takes a lot of effort, a lot of planning and a lot of volunteerism. We have a fairly good-sized group, but we can’t do it all. There’s just no way.”

Starting now, they need folks to repaint props and perform various other tasks in preparation for the event. Then, the weekend of Pirate Daze, they’ll need extra hands to operate the children’s games in Scallywag Alley, to act as “runners,” and to help with setup and teardown.

Holmes is leading the volunteer brigade. Anyone interested in helping out in any way should call her at 509-619-3976.

“We hope to get other pirate groups to come in, too, and say, ‘Hey, we’d love to participate!’” she said.

“We’re looking to the community to be there” to help, added Jensen. “If they really want this thing to continue on, they’re going to have to put their backs into it as well!”

Holmes said her long-term goal is to build Pirate Daze back to its early “glory days.”

“There’s a legacy behind this,” she said, “and we’d like to keep that legacy going.”

For more information on the event, scheduled for June 26-28 in Westport, visit rustyscupperspiratedaze.com.