“Where the Wild Things Are” earned top honors at the annual Winona Lake Flotilla.

WINONA LAKE — The weather began to cool Sunday night as pontoons and other types of water-going vessels lined up near the Winona Lake Beach Pier for the annual Flotilla and participation was enthusiastic, to say the least.

“You know, we had double the participants of last year and the floats were exceptional this year,” said Deborah Lange, event organizer. “I mean, people went all out.”

A Tarzan yell comes from fifth-place “African Queen.”

The event attracted 14 participants with a theme of “Jungle Safari” and entrants flexed their creativity muscles, making the job of judges Katie Wonderly, Carol Freeman and Jenny Harting a bit of a challenge.

“It was awesome and we have excellent prizes and we had unbelievable donations from the Winona businesses,” said Lange. “Our first prize is over $50 worth of stuff. That’s pretty amazing for the businesses to contribute like that.

Aside from prizes for the top six entrants, organizers also gave awards for the oldest and youngest participants. “This year our youngest is only about four months old,” said Lange.

First prize went to entry number four with the title “Where the Wild Things Are,” while boat 14 took home second place with a title “Wild About Winona.” “Where the Wild Things Are featured tiki torches and bamboo embellishments. “Wild About Winona” featured lights on the side and occupants held signs depicting the boat’s safari attractions.

“Rio,” boat number seven featured music and jungle birds for third place. The boat “Welcome to the Jungle” placed fourth with a large giraffe and monkeys. Boats one and 10 respectively placed fifth and sixth and were entitled “African Queen” and “Samson.”

Entrants were judged on theme and overall appearance, originality and overall creativity, characters, people and costumes and special effects.

Aside from Lange, the planning committee consisted of Craig Allebach, Art and Cooke Gakstatter, Becky Grill, Connie Kaiser, Ken and Barb Konieczny and Pete Lieffring.