A punting boat of the type that has featured in many of my photos is properly called Stocherkahn here in Tübingen. Once a year there’s a race with these boats — a Stocherkahnrennen — around the island in the middle of the Neckar River. When I first learned of it, I thought we were going to be away the day of the race, so I didn’t follow up on finding out more about it. But then this morning, Chris happened on the information brochure I’d picked up weeks ago that talked about the race. And lo and behold, the race was today.

Since we hadn’t originally planned on seeing it, we didn’t have a good plan for when to go to stake out a good place to watch it. The race is literally around that island in front of Tübingen’s old city center, and the best vantage point to watch the race is definitely my standard spot on the “postcard shot” bridge. However, since we figured things out too late, that spot was packed by the time we got there. So, we wound up watching from either side of the island – not bad, but not like the photos you can get from the bridge, which is what you can see on the local newspaper’s website.

However, we still enjoyed the spectacle. I’d compare it in concept to something like the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. It’s a race where some people (but not all) dress in costume, and the people aren’t necessarily athletes. Or in shape. Or, I suspect, completely sober (although I don’t know that last part for a fact). However, most of the people in this race were male students, aside from 2 crews made up of all women; one crew started off the race with a guy dressed as a pharaoh, the other female set had the only female pilot that I noticed. Well, I did noticed a male pilot dressed in drag, so technically there were two pilots in female attire. Chris read in the newspaper later that a couple of the boats actually had professional punting pilots, but I’m not sure that they won the race.

The regular style for riding in a Stocherkahn boat is to have a single pilot propelling the boat forward, with the riders in the boat sitting along either side of the boat. The “racing” style is for the riders in the boat to assist with propelling the boat forward by using their hands to “row”. Each boat crew was evenly distributed down each side of a boat. They would lean over the side of the boat and use one hand to “row,” all the while counting off eins, zwei, drei … (“1, 2, 3” ), until they reached “20”. And then the two groups on the boat would swap sides, and so they could switch rowing arms. On the first side of the island, the chants were strong and enthusiastic. By the time they made it to the other side of the island, the chants had gotten a little lackluster. Not that I blamed them – it seemed like a crazy task they were doing.

Most boats also had a guy in front, who leaned over and put both arms in the water. In the photos, it looks like the guys in this position were about to dive into the water. But they were really just reaching down and stroking through the water with both arms.

The only guys who wound up in the water were the ones who would have to jump out to get their boat back on course. It’s not easy to pilot one of those boats, apparently, if you’re not a pro, and there were several small boat collisions (although none serious, thank goodness). One boat at the end did appear to be almost sinking as a result of all the water that had gotten splashed into the boat as the people rowed. I’ve got a couple of shots of people in different boat bailing out the water in their boat with their shoes. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that… I guess buckets are not standard equipment in a Stocherkahn.

Anyway, I’ve got a set of photos below that has ones taken both by Chris and by me.  I think they capture the essence of the 2012 Tübingen Stocherkahnrennen.

BTW, according to what Chris read in the newspaper article afterwards, the people on the last boat to cross the finish line have to drink cod liver oil. No, I don’t know why. I promise I’ll try to come up the answer before next year’s race…