The idea is to build a toy-sized sailboat out of available materials and get it to the other side of the pond by THROWING things at it... THIS is the pond in question, in its pristine state before use:

Designs varied widely in beauty and complexity. This one was my favorite:

This one was the winner: 'Lust' is apparently running for supreme court in NY state. There are 'Lust' signs everywhere that I noticed on the bus ride back to Manhattan. I would have taken pictures, but my camera had somehow become broken.

Some designs were "elegantly simple".

The simplicity of some designs exceeded elegance...

Was that even a boat?

After the regatta, I returned to the potato cannon and started checking it out. Now this scared the SHIT out of the throwers of the party. They had got the idea in their head that I was a little bit crazy and that I wanted to go hunting humans with a potato cannon. Of course the fact that the cannon was POINTED RIGHT AT THE CROWD didn't help matters much. But it was not made to be turned! My idea was that I was going to wait until everyone was out of the way anyway, but they decided somebody should run top speed to stop me and make sure I didn't blow some kid's head off with a potato so that they wouldn't need to scour the pond looking for it. Anyway, after all was said and done, they reconnected the wires they had cleverly detached and let me fire a couple of shots. One hit the blue loveseat (of Couch Tobogganing fame), and the other fell short and hop hopped along the ground toward the general direction. I wasn't going to shoot at any people! Really! But they probably still do not believe me. At least they let me fire off a couple of shots anyway. That was cool of them.

***le potato cannon***contents***got the meat!***