Fisher Hall hosted the annual Fisher Regatta Saturday at Saint Mary’s Lake, during which student teams raced across the lake in boats they constructed. Fisher was well represented with 12 teams, with the remaining boats drawing from a mix of dorms and clubs. Proceeds from the event go to Fisher’s longtime charity partner, St. Adalbert’s School.
The S.S. Boogie Woogie, sailed by students Ioane Tuaopepe, Frank Tran, Branden Browning and Kacper Szyller as well as Aiden Robertson ’24, was the winning boat in this year's edition of the regatta.
Last year, the future of the Regatta was in doubt, as Fisher was set to be demolished at the end of the school year. Despite Fisher’s former residents are living in Zahm Hall while their new residence hall is being built, the event has endured through the changes.
“This year’s Fisher Regatta means everything to the Fisher Community, as it is our last year under the name of Fisher,“ dorm president Aidan Sachs wrote. “Next year we will switch to be called Coyle, so this year was very important for celebrating our dorms long history and tradition.“
Meredith Kononchek, a mechanical engineering major, was one of many participants who built and raced boats made of cardboard, PVC pipes and trash bags in the longstanding campus tradition.
“I love building stuff, and I love a good competition,” Kononchek said. “I love a good challenge, so I was excited to do it.”
Kononchek and her Howard Hall teammates designed a canoe-like boat with space for two people. Although they barely snuck around the inside of the buoy marking the halfway point of the race, they managed to stay dry and paddle across the lake without capsizing.
“We prepared for the worst,” Kononchek said. “We had bathing suits underneath our clothes, towels ready and extra layers to put on after we got out. But surprisingly, we did not fall in.”
Participants used paddles and wore life jackets provided by event organizers. Although Kononchek’s boat didn’t finish first, she said the experience was memorable and she is already making plans to participate again next year.
“We’re thinking about making it entirely out of cardboard again and seeing if we can actually really make it still with only the $50,” she said.
Kononchek said the event had a strong turnout, with more students and spectators arriving later in the morning.
“I loved it,” she said. “It was a lot of fun.”
Cameron Thompson, a sophomore in Keenan Hall, shared that he and his teammates made a last minute decision to participate, joining the race the night before.
“It was 11:30 before the regatta and we said ’Hey, why not?’ We wanted to at least do the race. I’ve never been in Saint Mary’s Lake, so that was probably part of it. I wanted to get a chance to swim in there once, and there was no Keenan team at this point,” Thompson said.
Thompson shared that his hall president then got in touch with Fisher’s vice president, who allowed them to register for the race. Thompson said that his team was very thankful for the chance to participate.
The Keenan team utilized cardboard from leftover delivery boxes from Zaland, the student-run dorm restaurant, for the structure of their boat. They also made a late-night run to Target before it closed to purchase duct tape, Flex Seal and life vests. They also utilized water coolers from Keenan Koffee.
They shaped the cardboard into a box, which was then sealed with duct tape and Flex Seal. Empty water coolers were added to the front and back, with the life vests on the bottom and the entire boat was then covered in garbage bags.
“I realized a little too late that the design was meant to float perfectly with the number of people we’re going to put in, so that the exact volume of the boat displaced enough water for us to float. That means that the water level has to rise up to the very lip of the boat. So if we rolled it, all water was going to get in, we were going to sink,” Thompson said.
“I didn't think to publicize that with the rest of the team, so we full sent it with five people, when two would probably have been perfect and very fast, but that wouldn’t have been fun, so we put all five in, which was great. We sank in about six seconds. But for those six seconds, it was glorious, and then we kind of just shamefully swam it around the buoy and got out,” he said.
Next year, Thompson said he hopes to compete again, although with a higher level of commitment.
“Hopefully we start more than 13 hours before the race next year, that would be big,” he said.
Maya Tello, a freshman in Johnson Family Hall, wrote in a statement to The Observer, “As a newly established dorm, JFAM was so excited to jump into the competition and use it as an opportunity to strengthen our community and show campus what the Valkyries are made of.”
The Johnson Family Hall team took second place, a win Tello attributed to the team’s captain, Sisy Chen, who handled the design and led the construction of their boat.
Tello shared that her favorite part of the event was “simply spending quality time with my team and friends and getting to be part of such a fun piece of our dorm culture—even though I was sick and definitely shouldn’t have been in that water.”
