Race day was a blast! In addition to the canoe races, the volleyball tournament, impromptu, mystery event, and surveying competition were held today, all at Santa Fe Dam. And, all 1,000 conference participants were treated to Doc’s cooking for lunch.
Photos by Lance Hill and various USC ASCE members (sorry, too many to credit individually).
Once again, we greeted KAP at 5am. Fortunately, we had already packed everything for race day. 
Once we got to Santa Fe Dam, the canoe went straight into the water. It floats! 
Swamp test: completely submerge the canoe to prove it can resurface. Our canoe floats too well to swamp… 
Bailing the water from the canoe after the swamp test. 
Canoe on the water 
Getting ready for races. 
First team goes out. 
Can you find our canoe? (The yellow boat is the lifeboat, not the canoe) 
One race down, four to go. 
The canoe’s holding up remarkably well. 
We discovered a fairly large crack that formed in transit. But it hadn’t propagated after the first race. 
Heading out for the men’s slalom/endurance race. 
Canoe still looks great. 
Women’s sprints. 
We were up against Cal Poly SLO in all of our heats… 
Our canoe weighed in around 400 pounds, making straight steering nearly impossible. 
SLO’s canoe was about 50 pounds. 
Meanwhile, the volleyball tournament was happening, along with other events. 
Oscar serves the ball. 
We were somewhat competitive in the volleyball tournament but ended up losing our first match. 
The lunch team prepares. 
Doc (lesser known as Professor Wong) was recruited to cook for everyone. 
Doc butchers slab after slab of meat and chicken. 
1,000 hungry engineers await Doc’s cooking. 
Doc’s excellent lunch was a highlight of race day. 
Afterword, Doc was unable to type our class notes for days because his hands were sore from butchering hundreds of pounds of frozen meat. 
The canoe’s still solid. 
The coed team heads out for our last race of the day. 
This is the first time in several years that our canoe has made it all the way to the last, coed race. 
Our senior leaders raced together for the first time. 
Lining up at the starting line. 
The coed race. 
Coming in from the coed race, canoe still intact. 
Three other schools dropped out throughout the day due to broken canoes, including one that split completely in half mid-race. 
Our canoe made it all the way! 
Our coed race team prepared to disembark. 
Some water filled into the canoe during the races, but not much. 
Thomas prepares to throw heasitant canoe captain Erin into the water after the last race. 
Erin: “no! no! no! no! no!” 
Everyone’s thrilled with our canoe’s success. 
We brought the canoe out of the water to prepare to load up. 
It takes the entire team to move the canoe, seeing as it’s around 400 pounds. 
The canoe all ready to head back to USC. 
But, upon arrival, we discovered that the ride home caused severe dual cracks. 
The canoe cradle bent severely under the weight of the canoe, and didn’t properly secure it. 
A closer look at one side’s crack. The damage ocurred right in the middle of the canoe. 
Since it’s so hard to move the canoe back to the basement, we unloaded to the pavement. 
The canoe’s final resting place.