32 Rafts Race in Third Annual Adams Regatta

Hundreds of sun-loving and beer-drinking spectators were on hand for the third annual Adams House Ivy and World Championship Raft Race held Saturday afternoon on the Charles.

Thirty-two rafts began the rugged course from the Lars-Anderson bridge to the Weeks bridge and back, but only half that number completed the race.

Kevin Ward, a junior from Adams House and the "big time operator and coordinator" of this year's race, awarded prizes to the individual contestants.

The big prize of the day went to the Queen Mab, an imitation of a paddle-wheel river boat. Ward awarded four cases of beer to the craft, citing it as "the most extravagant, colossal and stupendous raft and the most likely to be hit by low flying aircraft."

Tim Neville, an Adams House junior, easily snared the prize for the "most blasphemous and sacrilegious craft" for floating down the Charles on a large cross.

The "poorest taste award" went to the raft "Quivering Thigh," whose crew, in a last-minute effort to gather poorest taste points, exposed themselves to spectators standing on the Weeks Bridge.

Ward gave the "most out to lunch" award to the Tommy's Lunch raft. "Tommy's Lunch spent $250.00 on materials and had ten mechanics to put the raft together," Ward said yesterday, "but somebody got mixed up and thought the race was on Sunday so they didn't show up."

Adams House's sole raft finished dead last in the race but won an award for "the raft most likely to have been conceived while on an acid trip."

Ward said he hoped that next year's race could be held in a water-filled Houston Astrodome, with the rafts sailing laps.