This WBBF radio promotion had crowds of thousands. What happened to the Great Raft Race?

For five years in the 1970s, hundreds of homemade vessels of all sorts took to Rochester's waterways each year as part of the Great Raft Race sponsored by radio station WBBF.

Not all of these "rafts" floated, and the events weren't actually races. This was about fun, as thousands of people cheered along the shorelines and at post-race concerts, fireworks shows and parties. Beer played nearly as big a part as water for many of the sailors; one news account from the era called the event "the area's annual floating circus."

The first three years, from 1975 to 1977, the race was held on the Genesee River. Rafts launched from a site on East River Road near bars like Elliot's Nest and Fantasy Swings and meandered to the finish line at the Genesee Valley Park Marina.

"People just used anything that would float," said Orest Hrywnak, who worked for WBBF then and was involved with the planning. "One raft was made of a couple of hundred plastic milk jugs. They just sat on them. I said, 'That's not going to work.' … If somebody started sinking, and that happened a lot, I'd put people on my boat."

Ken Wolf was the mastermind behind the event. He was the WBBF general manager and went by the radio name of Dan Clayton. Wolf said he hired a contractor to bulldoze brush and small trees, without prior approval, so the rafts could more easily be launched.

Officials came after him after the fact, apparently not too vigorously.

"I apologized, and the city attorney said, 'I listen to the new sound of BBF,' " Wolf said — a nod to the station's catch-phrase. "The environmentalists would have gone crazy!"

Some 50,000 people lined the shores to watch the 1976 event, according to news reports. Estimates on the number of rafts ranged from 300 to 600 annually. "At times, it seemed like half of Rochester was trying to get into the water," Mike Meyers wrote in a July 1977 Democrat and Chronicle story. When Meyers asked one skipper how long it took to launch, he replied "About two cases of beer."

The key was to make as unusual and outlandish a raft as possible. There were sightings of a modified go-kart, a floating outhouse, a 30-foot "fire truck," an eight-foot Statue of Liberty float and a paddle-wheel vessel propelled by crew members on bicycles. Empty beer kegs were used as floatation devices. A local heating and cooling company built a double-deck raft with air conditioning on the lower level, Hrywnak said.

"That's how involved people got with building these rafts," he said.

The race moved to the then-Barge Canal in 1978, starting at a site off South Clinton Avenue and still ending at Genesee Valley Park. The crowds, both on and off the water, continued to grow. There was one problem with the canal route, though: There was no current to move the rafts as there was on the river.

"We weren't sailors," he said with a laugh. "We didn't think far ahead that the canal doesn't have a current. We were radio people. We didn't tell people to bring paddles, so a lot of them, they just sat there."

Event organizers wound up towing a number of rigs. For others, the journey took hours. Not too many people seemed to mind.

"Except for the logjams and water fights, the race was free and easy enough to suit Huck Finn," Democrat and Chronicle reporter Jim Borg wrote in July 1978.

A woman who participated in the 1978 race wrote a letter to the editor complaining about water balloons and beer cans being thrown at passing rafts, as well as the plight of rafts left abandoned at the finish line. The marina operator at Genesee Valley Park said the area was a mess the following day. But the number of complaints was minor, as most everyone seemed to realize the raft race was about fun — and, apparently, drinking beer.

"Near the finish line, many sailors were more interested in racing to the bathroom than down the canal," Greg Victor wrote in a 1978 Times Union article.

Hrywnak said he and others navigated the waterways after the races to retrieve abandoned rafts. The WBBF employees also had to lug a grand piano to Genesee Valley Park for a post-race concert by musician Jay Ferguson — and then transport the piano to the old Triangle Theater when rain forced the concert to be moved there.

The last raft race was held in 1979, the year Wolf (aka Dan Clayton) left WBBF for another job. Wolf said via email that he had organized the first raft race on the Potomac River in 1973, when he worked for a Washington, D.C., station, and said he knew it would be a hit in Rochester.

Wolf approached Genesee Beer officials to promote the Rochester event from its beginning and said they initially were skittish.

"I hit them with, 'How would it sound for Budweiser to sponsor the event on the 'Mighty Genesee?' " Wolf wrote. "Bingo. They bit. They sponsored the event every year, along with (other) clients."

Many of the participants, it seemed, showed their appreciation by supporting the sponsor's product.

Whatever Happened to …? is a feature about Rochester’s haunts of yesteryear and is based on our archives.

Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.

Editor's note: This story was originally published in July 2014.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: The Great Raft Race was a hit in Rochester NY during the 1970s