Our Message Board
updated May 5, 2001
Posted by Chris Hodapp (68.57.205.98) on June 14, 2003 at 02:46:57:
In Reply to: Re: river fest posted by Alan Hague on May 27, 2003 at 20:14:32:
If I remember right, they began in 1975. The rafts went into the water at the Landings Apartments, and were extracted at the broad Ripple park boat ramp. I was in the first year on a pitiful raft that collapsed by the time I hit Ravenswood. I still remember the guy in the big plastic bag who walked all the way up the river, the floating Volkswagen, and the two barge/two story tall TGI Friday raft.
In year three a group of us built a 21 foot long replica of the Titanic that weighed enough that we collapsed a boat trailer with it. Had a mere 6 inch draft even with a crew of seven! The next year, we rebuilt the superstructure, added tennis ball cannon, painted it battleship gray, and christened it the HMS Elizabeth Ray. For our work, tireless effort and noisy presentation, we were awarded the prestigious and suitably enormous "Buzzard Cup."
Eventually, liability and police concerns killed off the race, and especially the free park concert, I think there were just four or five of them. If I remember, the station tried once to resurrect the idea farther down the river near downtown, but it was a dud.
When I joined Broad Ripple Masonic Lodge in 1998, I discovered not just Big John Gillis of WIBC to be a member, but also the former program director of WNAP from its glory days, Don Seeley, who had helped to create the Raft Race all those years ago.
Small world. Wouldn't want to paint it...