28 teams battle for win at Cardboard Boat Regatta

Competitors used both brains and brawn Friday as they raced – or, in several cases, swam – across the IU Outdoor Pool in vessels constructed of cardboard and duct tape for the eighth annual Cardboard Boat Regatta.

The event was organized by the Council for Advancing Student Leadership and benefitted its annual Top Ten Student Leaders Scholarship.

IU Outdoor Adventures won first place of the 28 teams, proving themselves victors after last year’s race, the only Regatta in which they did not place first or second.

“We got beat by a shoe,” said sophomore and “coach” Jack Brumbaugh with a laugh, referring to a Nike-looking ship from last year. “We have redeemed ourselves. We have risen from the ashes. We are the phoenix of the Cardboard Boat Regatta.”

IU Outdoor Adventures members were still working on the roughly 16-foot-long black canoe, dubbed “the Moldy Banana,” an hour before the race began.

“We started at seven o’clock last night,” said junior Kyle Meier.
Meier and sophomore Logan Owens paddled the Banana to victory less than 23 hours later.

This year saw a new event within the Regatta: the first-ever Dean’s Challenge, featuring Dean of Students Dick McKaig, Dean of the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Bob Goodman and Stephen Watt, associate dean for strategic planning in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“I was glad they embraced it so well, and we’re just kind of rolling with it,” said senior Matt Catanzarite, CASL’s event director.

While each of their boats was constructed by CASL, Watt triumphed, while Goodman’s boat collapsed before he even got going. McKaig made it about 20 feet before he, too, ended up in the water. Three members of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity jumped into the pool to escort him to the finish line.

“The Sammys saved me,” McKaig told the crowd as he climbed out of the pool.
Sigma Alpha Mu placed second overall, while the physics club came in third, followed by Wild Aces and Sigma Chi for fourth and fifth, respectively.

Apart from the speed race were the creativity awards, judged by business management professor David Rubinstein and assistant athletic director for student services Mattie White. Originality and theme were important elements, but they looked for effort and passion as well, White said.

“When they talk about it, do their eyes light up?” Rubenstein asked.
In the end, team members for Ship Happens, a dinosaur boat constructed by Bloomington High School South students, earned the trophy for having a cohesive theme, wearing animal prints and singing the theme song of “The Flintstones.”

“There’s a human element to that boat,” Rubenstein said. “It meant so much to them.”
Second place went to the Therapeutic Recreation club’s car-shaped vessel, while the Taiwanese Student Association’s red, yellow and blue Sweet Potato dragon boat took third.

“We kind of modeled it after a convertible Bug,” said senior and TR club member Jackie Stachowiak. “It came out more like a Jeep.”

As a surprise for McKaig, who will retire next year, CASL handed out paper cut-outs of McKaig’s face to crowd members to hold up, a gesture McKaig accepted with a laugh.

“I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out,” Catanzarite said. “Everybody’s happy, smiling.”