SBU Roth Pond Regatta draws large crowd
The 34th annual Roth Pond Regatta at Stony Brook University took place Friday afternoon, April 28. Participating students had to make boats out of cardboard, duct tape, string and paint in order to be eligible to race. The theme of this year’s event was “A Fairy Tale Regatta: This is Our Swamp.”
A press release for the event stated that the event “customarily draws about 3,000 spectators.” However, Riccardo McClendon, dean of students, said, “It’s probably more than that right now. This is one of the largest student events that we have on campus.”
“The beauty about this is that their whole purpose is to be in community with each other,” McClendon added. “The designs are really cool that we see throughout the entire race, and it’s a lot of fun. We’ve got faculty, staff, students, community members all around enjoying the event, and it’s one of those kind of traditional events that everyone comes out for.”
The regatta included individual award categories for the boats that displayed the best “design, appearance, apparent seaworthiness, originality, spirit, environmental sustainability, endurance and adherence to the rules,” according to the press release.
The event featured races for two different categories of boats. One was the “speedster” races, where two people would ride in a small construction, while the other was the “yacht” category, where four people would ride in larger boats.
“After two years of COVID and trying to come back and build community, that’s what this is about,” McClendon said. “We try to keep these traditions going just to remind students that we are a campus, we are thriving, we are engaged in everyday life with each other. So this helps with that.”
