Tübingen punting race

Once a year, the tranquil scene of rowboats gliding leisurely along the Neckar transforms into its complete opposite. More than forty boats, each carrying eight people, crowd together side by side, waiting for the starting signal of the rowboat race. On Corpus Christi, around 2 p.m., things suddenly get crowded on Tübingen’s river for a good hour. The punt race begins, and with it one of the funniest and wildest spectacles on Tübingen’s calendar of events. An hour earlier, around 1 p.m., all the boat crews present their outlandish, imaginative, funny, and quirky costumes at the “costume parade”—an event you definitely shouldn’t miss, as it offers exceptional entertainment value and even comes with a prize. A challenge cup and a keg of beer go to the winner, while the most imaginative costumes are rewarded with a suckling pig. The losers and those who capsized are in for a rough time: they must drink half a liter of cod liver oil per person in front of the entire crowd amid the spectators’ frenetic applause—one of the festival’s highlights, which turns the losers into secret winners. And while the winners secure the free beer for the evening’s festivities, the losers must already start thinking about organizing the next punt race. That’s the rule. The loser in 2025 was the Alte Straßurger Burschenschaft Germania, which will host the race in 2026.