Saturday AM: Boat "Race"

Judges and teams assembled on 57th Street Beach on Saturday morning at 11:30 am for "The Carrion Classic," (item 9 on the Scav Olympics page). The idea was to hold a boat race...



Also - "Flotation of this craft must be entirely milk carton-based." While that is not the best sentence I've ever read, the judges were adamant that the boats not be built of wood, plastic tubes, concrete, steel, or what have you. Here is Max P's boat. Note the amazing wood lattice on top. One of my friends on the team was particularly proud of that contribution to the effort.



This is Snell-Hitchcock's boat. As much as I hate to give them any props, let alone mad props (see Rule #4), their boat looks sea-worthier than Max P's boat and a lot less likely to collapse on the huge (for Lake Michigan) waves.



Here the judges do an admirable job convincing the Scavvies that they are, in fact, human beings with souls. Because it was about 55 degrees and a 20 mph wind was blowing off the lake, they decide to cancel the 'race' and instead tell the teams they must take their boats to the lake and then paddle out until the judges tell them to turn around.



Is this even a boat? Well... I can't identify this team, but this is not an inspired effort!



Max P's brave sailors take their positions at the starting line. Note that in lieu of a ball gown the Max P captain is wearing a woman's bathing suit. Just another demonstration of the lengths participants will go to earn points in the Hunt.



Snell Hitchcock gets ready:



The starting gun...



And they're off, for the shortest and coldest 'race' of their lives:



These next few pictures are the sequence of events over about two minutes after the teams all ran into the water. Actually this whole sequence probably took less than two minutes. I don't think any member of any team actually got on to the boats, so it probably does not need to be added that there was no actual paddling, sailing, or boating. On the other hand, no one ran aground or capsized and no sailors were lost.







And back out on to drier (and warmer (just barely)) land:



Max Palevsky's boat held together, no doubt thanks to that amazing wood lattice provided by Louis Anderson. On behalf of Team TACOS, I thank you for that.



Max P celebrates the successful completion of the item and the fact that there were no fatalities or cases of hypothermia.



And the brave (and unidentified) mariners stand with what remains of their boat. (For the environmentally concerned, most of it was dragged home, but the milk cartons were thrown away or recycled in appropriate places and no junk was left in our beautiful lake.) Also note that these people are not wearing towels, they have cloth vulture wings.