Jason Had The Golden Fleece, Pro Tek Has The Golden Paddle

The Fourth annual raft race was held on July 21 but long before any of the boats hit the water, the odds-on favorite was Pro Tek Auto's raft which, as rumor had it, was going to be quite the spectacle and possibly armed with cannons!

The Pro Tek team didn't disappoint. Taking a page from this year's , the team spent a week on a raft modeled after the tall ship USS Constitution in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. And it would have had cannons too, except the team ran out of time to make them. 

Having won the coveted Golden Paddle for the past two years running, Pro Tek's raft was the one to beat. And the team from JMS Automotive and Sign Craft (which won the race the first year it was held) were Pro Tek's biggest rivals. This year, however, the JMS team found it had little more than three hours to throw a raft together. 

"It's a bunch of barrels with a raft on top," said team captain John Santos. "It made it through. It didn't sink. That's the main thing." 

Indeed, not all of the rafts made it back to the beach this year. For the first time in the race's four-year history, lifeguards had to rescue one team after its raft capsized. Luckily, all the crew members aboard the "Gorloack" were wearing life vests. (Although that was only because they had decorated them as part of their Viking costume!)

The Viking team was made up of four teens from Glastonbury who made their raft from recyclables and were using empty plastic bottles duct-taped together to keep them afloat. Let's just say it wasn't quite as seaworthy as the other vessels, which used empty barrels as pontoons.

Then again, Niantic Bay Bicycles also had a close call. "We did lose a pontoon so we were lucky to get back," said team captain Steve Morrissey. "Last year we were sinking."

Overall though, Morrissey said he was pretty pleased with his team's second-place win this year. "This race is our best performance," he said. "We did okay."

So who won the golden paddle? You guessed it - the Pro Tek Auto team won once again!