A Cardboard Yacht Race - cheaper than Disneyland!
by Des Ryan on 5 Jul 2010
. Greg Garrison
On the west coast of the USA they have always been up to some pretty amazing feats, so when they declared a Lake Sacajawea cardboard boat regatta in Washington State, more than 50 crews entered, and a large crowd gathered to watch the spectacle.
You might have guessed that the day was sponsored by a Fibre Paper and Packaging company, but they weren't all seaworthy.
When Shaun Knudsen and Abe Ott launched their two-person, brown-and-yellow, banana slug-themed boat, Slug O'War, into Lake Sacajawea it promptly capsized, sending Knudsen and Ott into the water.
After another failed attempt with a two-person crew, Captain Ott came up with a better plan — turn it into a solo mission.
'I put so much time and effort into this, I was not going to give up that easy,' Ott said.
Knudsen said he gladly stayed on shore to help the team, Banana Slug Racing, have a chance to win the second annual Longview Cardboard Boat Regatta on Saturday.
'Whatever it was gonna take to make that slug go,' Knudsen said.
Sails were found to be pretty much useless, and oars turned out to be the winning method of propulsion - even on the sailing boats.
Why was the race so popular? 'I did the math. It's way cheaper to do this than to go to Disneyland,' one competitor said before the race. 'And it's more fun and hopefully more memorable.'
It was indeed memorable, as were other sinking vessels, including the Key Club Monster, a four-pod sea serpent that went down in stages; the Lavender Shark, a Viking boat that sank before getting underway; and the
Longview police boat.
Public address announcer Randy Querin, said he was 'shocked at the high quality of the boats.'I have never been to one of these, so I assumed half the boats would sink,' he said.
Some did sink, but most got there before they sank. There were prizes for the best party boat, the most spectacular sinking, and best looking boat - o and there was even one for the boat that got there first!
Enjoy the photos!
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