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It rained on Sweet Briar's first-of-a-kind Presidential Pink Shoe Parade during Homecoming 2008, but that didn't stop it from happening. It simply took a different route to its destination — the annual Cardboard Boat Regatta, which was moved to the Williams Gymnasium pool because of the weather.

Even as the drizzle was turning into a steady shower, President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld climbed gamely into the giant high-heeled shoe on wheels, giving no outward sign of its less-than-luxurious interior upholstery. "I did not realize that you sat down on the floor on a sodden foam pad," she said later.

Clutching a flowery pink umbrella, she took her seat behind Katelyn James '11, who by now is an old hand at driving the unusual conveyance in a downpour. James and several fellow students built the shoe and ran it in the Red Bull Soapbox Derby in Philadelphia when Tropical Storm Hanna was passing through the city earlier in September.

At the gym, a crush of spectators gathered in the muggy Prothro Natatorium where five boats made of 20 pounds of corrugated cardboard and 50 feet of duct tape sat ready to go. The regatta is a team project for students in assistant professor of engineering Dorsa Sanadgol's Engineering 110 course, Designing our World: An Introduction to Engineering Design. The teams design, test and then race the boats, which are evaluated by a panel of judges for speed, buoyancy, design and best overall score.

The cardboard for this year's regatta was supplied by International Paper in Lynchburg. The judges were Hunter Cloud, president of BRG Machinery Consulting in Charlottesville; Martin Rothwell, engineering instructor from Chantilly Academy in Chantilly, Va.; Les Beebe, senior designer at International Paper; and Ric Woerner, senior engineer from Glad Products' Amherst plant.

At the starting signal, two students from each team launched the vessels in hopes of completing six laps in the pool ahead of the others — or at least staying afloat long enough to finish. In an impressive performance, the sleek and minimalist My Summertime Snowmobile, manned by Madeline Wilson '12 and Meredith Paysinger '12, overtook Ice Cubed early in the first lap and never relinquished its lead.

Meanwhile, despite winning the best design category, The Rubber Duct foundered early and crewmates Stephanie Kepner '12 and Roshel MacGorman '12 were left to heave the soggy wreckage onto the pool deck. Sweet Vixtory was the next to go down with Jordan Fisher '12 and Petra Dacheva '09 at the helm, leaving three to gut out the course.

The crowd roared when Pirates and Pearls sank, the cardboard appearing to ooze into the water as teammates Hillary Gildea '12 and Sarah Lightbody '12 disappeared briefly before popping back into view.

Snowmobile's sharply pointed bow, square stern and shallow hull helped it cruise to victory well ahead of Ice Cubed. But Ice's crew, Lauren Perhala '12 and Laura Seymour '12, weren't finished and the crowd took up their cause. The women doggedly plied their cardboard paddles through the final lap as a chant of "go, go, go, go!" rose amid rhythmic clapping.

The more buoyant of the two finishers remained to be determined. This is done by pouring five-gallon buckets of water into the boats until they sink. Crews wait patiently in their crafts while a volunteer essentially demolishes hours and hours of work inside and outside of the classroom.

On this day, the boats tied, taking eight buckets each to go under. In another testament to its seaworthiness, Snowmobile was raised from the drink thoroughly wet but intact. Its scores for speed and buoyancy combined to give the team the overall win.

Paysinger said she and her teammates started out with a wider base and taller sides for their Snowmobile design, but in tests it proved hard to paddle and unstable. "When we made the final [boat], we were like, 'We don't need it that big,'" she said.