The Resident Hall Association concluded their neighborhood week with a boat race at the Campus Pond at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

The boat race is an annual tradition held to conclude the Neighborhood Week. This year’s theme was superhero based. All of the boats were designed based on different superheroes.

Teams of the boat race were composed of residence halls.

Residents of the building participated in building the boats.

Last year, Lawson Hall won the boat race, and the builder, Caleb Cross, a sophomore history with teaching licensure major, built the boat for this year as well.

“Although it looks horrible last year, I actually built the boat for Lawson and we won last year,” Cross said. “So I said, why not do it again? Maybe we can win again.”

Cross decided on a different way of building the boat than he did last year.

“There’s a lot more effort like last year was basically just a box with some stuff slapped on it,” Cross said. “This year like it more or less is just a whole ball like the it has an entire bottom design. It has like a defining shape, and just a lot more thought, time and a lot more duct tape put in this year.”

Lawson’s boat was Captain America themed with Captain America’s shield and colors.

The builder of Thomas Hall’s boat, Peter Walker, a freshman history education major joined the hall council wanting to build the boat.

Walker knew about the boat race for about a year and a half he said, and was always interested in it. Since Pemberton’s boat was Loki themed, their boat was green and was shaped like a Viking Longship.

Walker said he spent a lot of time constructing the boat.

“I drew out the designs, I don’t have them on me right now. But there is a framework it is a eight foot bottom boat by I think two foot wide,” Walker said. “The top is it’s angled so it’s a little bit bigger on the top.”

The boat race began around 6:30 p.m.

Lawson Hall’s boat could not stay balanced in the water, so they did not make it far past the starting point.

Other boats broke right once they hit the water.

Weller, McKinney and Stevenson went the furthest in the competition.

McKinney finished in first place.

Al Jones, sophomore history major and Robbie Rollins, junior family consumer sciences education major, were the rowers for the McKinney boat.

Jones assisted with building and painting the boat, as well as making the capes for the hall’s uniform.

Jones rowed the boat to the other side, and then Rollins rowed them back to victory.

Jones said his main objective was to not spin the boat.

Rollins and Jones discussed their game plan before the event started.

Rollins said, “We talked about long, long, strong rows basically because if you do short consecutive ones, you’re gonna start spinning and spinning and spinning. So the process was the long powerful rows that got out to the other side. Then on the way back, I was trying my best to do the same thing and that ended up allowing us to pass multiple boats.”

The race ended with McKinney, Weller and Stevenson close to the finish line.

Rollins said his heart was racing towards the end.

The event ended around 6:45 p.m.

Claire Meek can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].