The regatta that cancels when the water comes
Photo: Bahnfrend, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA.
Once a year, Alice Springs runs a regatta down the bed of the Todd River. The river is dry. That is not a problem.
It started in 1962, at a Rotary picnic, with a dare that stuck: cut the bottoms out of the boats and carry them. That is still the sport. Crews lift bottomless boats onto their shoulders and run the course on the sand. Around it: Surf Rescue, run on no surf; Sand Skis; the Budgie Smugglers; and a Battle Boat Spectacular to finish, trucks rigged as ships and smoke everywhere.
A boat with no bottom cannot need water. A river with no water cannot sink it. The joke is built into the structure, and the structure has held for sixty-odd years, raising more than $1.7 million for local Rotary along the way.
The rule they keep in writing: rain or shine, unless the river is flowing or the weather turns dangerous. The stopper with a story attached is water: in 1993 the Todd filled, and the regatta stopped.
If you're in the Centre next August, go. Gates open at 11, races at noon. Bring nothing. The boats have no bottoms, and the river, most years, has no water. That is the whole trick, and it keeps working.