Scott Craig – Tennessee In Photographs

What do you call 10,000 ducks floating down the Cumberland River next to Riverfront Park in Nashville on a hot Saturday afternoon in September?  Why the Great Nashville Duck Race of course!

Ten thousand plastic, numbered ducks were available for a $5 donation each.  At 1:00 they were dropped off of a bridge into the Cumberland River.  The first one to the finish line was the winner.  What could be more simple?
As the photos show it was a gorgeous day with cloudless, brilliant blue skies.  Nashville is going through a late-season warm spell so it was rather hot for mid-September.  The event was held at Riverfront Park near downtown Nashville.  The Coast Guard was present, presumably for safety and to keep boaters from disrupting the event.
Precisely at 1:00pm, and after a countdown by the crowd, a front-end loader dumped the ducks off a nearby bridge into the river.
The current in the Cumberland River isn’t very strong and even with help from the bow wave of a runabout and a jet ski it took about 30 minutes for the ducks to drift the quarter mile or so to the finishing line.
During that time a local DJ kept the onlookers in good spirits, and a few people decided to help him out with their dancing.  One of the more interesting versions of YMCA that I’ve seen ;)
The ducks kept closing in on the finishing line seemingly oblivious to the festivities going on only a few feet away!
These four had a close race going on!
But this little red-billed guy persevered and won the coveted title of winner of the Great Nashville Duck Race of 2010!
As the rest of the field closed in on the finish line the crowd cheered and the winning ducks got some well-deserved rest after their run down the river. My congratulations to the winner and to all of the field!  Everyone was a winner in this race because we all had a good time, and there will be a lot of kids benefiting from the proceeds of the race.