The Chestertown Tea-party Raft Race is held each year on memorial day Sunday. For the past several year Turtleswamp Industries has sponsored a raft in the race. Those rafts are listed below with the most recent entries first.
Banana Republic
2009 "Best Bribe"
We re-used the monkey costumes from the previous year and reconfigured our original raft into the shape of a banana. The name and theme flowed naturally from there. As a result of our efforts "Best Bribe" is now an official award category for all future races. Banana Republic was the first raft to include alcoholic beverages in the official bribery kit.
2001 A Space Oddesy:
The Dawn of Man
2008
As a tribute to Arthur C. Clark who had passed away earlier in the year we built a scale model of the monolith and dressed up in monkey costumes. As of the time of this writing this is the only raft not built as a retrofit to the original platform.
The Blowviator
2007 "DaVinci Award"
The Blowviator was an experimental craft powered by the rare element Fizzonium 238. When combined with water drawn onboard by a human powered pumping mechanism and kept under proper pressure, it's expansive properties propelled the raft... at least until we lost containment and the whole rig fell apart. Fortunately the ecological survey showed no lasting damage.
The Barracuda
2006
After seeing the Rat Racer in the water we thought our existing platform could be modified to look like a barracuda. So we designed a raft powered by a fish-tail mechanism, and when a web search returned Barracuda Magazine we had our theme. The Barracuda was the first Turtleswamp raft to have its own sound track, and the fist not to use the original propellors for propulsion.
Rat Racer
2005 "DaVinci Award"
The Rat Racer was intended to be a simple technological improvement to the previous engine designs, but controversy struck when the judges attempted to disqualify us for using an all gerbil command crew. Rat Racer was also the first Turtleswamp raft to include an "official judge bribery kit" (a standard feature on all subsequent entries).
Weapon of Mass Destruction
2004
Our first attempt at having theme for our raft, Weapon of Mass destruction, was a poorly thought out commentary on the Iraq war. It also incorporated an improved gearing system for the main engines, and a secret compartment that could be opened releasing balloons with a sign that said "bang". Presumably due to the controversial nature of the name, we were not announced prior to or during the race.
Bow Movement
2003
The first raft sponsored by Turtleswamp Industries, Bow movement was intended to make a bid for the DaVinci award. It was powered by a pair of home-made hand crank propellers which were the primary power-plant for the next 2 rafts.