Gargantuan carved-out pumpkins served as vessels for the annual Pumpkin Regatta on Lake Mendota Saturday.

The spectators gathered around the terrace whooped and cheered as the pumpkin racers carved a track around the Memorial Union pier, rented from the Sailing Club for the occasion.

“Are you guys ready”? James Nienhuis, the race’s announcer, cried. “Remember your port and starboard, and for God’s sake, don’t capsize.”

Despite Nienhuis’s advice, a few unlucky racers still lost control of their gourds.

“I felt it coming, and it felt a little unstable and I tried to turn it around,” said John Lumpkin, who ended up taking an unplanned dip in the waters of Lake Mendota. “The water felt nice, it’s a little dirty today but it was very cool,” he said.

Meanwhile, others were waiting for their turn to pilot a pumpkin. Among them was Bill Gross, a UW senior and member of the Horticulture Society.

“I’m waiting my turn to enter the race,” he said.”It takes about a year to grow these things, the equivalent of one growing season.”

Gross said the annual regatta helps more people on campus become aware of the Horticulture Society.

There is no winner because fun is the object of the race, Nienhuis said.

“This event takes zero money to organize and pull off; we just take giant pumpkins and race ’em,” Nienhuis said. “Everyone had a fun time, and that’s what matters.”

As the event progressed into the afternoon, trash cans grew into piles of discarded pumpkin parts as more and more pumpkins were carved and gutted.

Nienhuis performed the role of announcer as he shouted pieces of advice to the racers, mingled with exasperation.

While the pumpkins were big, they weren’t as big as they could have been. Most competitors’ pumpkins weighed in between 500 and 600 pounds, Nienhuis said.

“We don’t use the largest pumpkins, because they’re so big and we haven’t figured out a way to engineer pumpkins with handles on them.”

There’s only been one major accident in the regatta’s seven year history Nienhuis said.

In 2003 – the first year of the event – Nienhuis said hundreds of people stood on the piers. The wooden piers could not withstand the weight and as a result, everyone fell into the water when the piers collapsed.

On Saturday, however, everything seemed to fit together. Unlike last weekend when windy conditions forced the event to be postponed, the weather made the event memorable.

You couldn’t envision a better Indian Summer day, with a record breaking high of 82 degrees.

“Could you imagine a better day than this”? Nienhuis said. “I saw sun glinting through the windows when I got up, and a little breeze but it wasn’t howling.”

At the dock, there were peals of laughter as another pumpkin capsized.

“Bring in the rescue boat!” Nienhuis shouted, to cheers and whoops from the spectators.

– McKenzie Badger contributed to this report.