Cardboard Boat
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These boats were entered in the 2004, 2005, and 2007 Great
Cardboard Boat Regatta, part of the Freedom Festival in Cedar Rapids. The
boats were sponsored by Kingston Lodge No. 676, designed by Don Mosier (he is an
engineer you know), and built by the brethren of Kingston Lodge.
What goes into a cardboard boat? Well, a whole bunch
of cardboard, 3 gallons of glue, a little dry wall tape and duct tape, a gallon
of primer, and a couple gallons of patio paint. Oh yeah, a whole lot of
work. But the durn things float, mostly repel water, and actually paddle
very well.
Results: The 2004 boat, "Pride of Kingston" won its
heat race and its semifinal race. Then it got fourth place in the finals.
Trophies only went to the first three places. The 2005 boat "Charlotte"
(a little "National Treasure" reference anyone?) did OK in its heat race and made
the semi-finals. In a brave attempt to add speed, the team added a fourth
paddler, which caused the center of gravity to fall slightly above the neutral
buoyancy point. Things went well until the first corner, when the boat
decided that up was down and down was up and the paddlers all got dunked.
Oh well, it was really hot and everybody had a lot of fun. Time did not
allow construction of a boat in 2006.
2007 Update: A boat was built for the 2007 race.
Available time did not allow completion of the paddle wheel variety. The
boat ended up being a catamaran, paddled by four persons. In a vain
attempt to add more speed, we added a couple ringers for paddlers. One was
Don Mosier's daughter Dani. The other was a lady that Don works with at
Rockwell Collins. We actually did pretty well. The boat was
solid as a rock, no tipping over this year. We made the semi-finals.
In the semi-s we got caught up in one of those traffic jams where three boats
are trying to go through the same spot in the water at the same time to get past
the first buoy. Even with that delay, we cut a bunch of time off our first
run. But I think we were in about 8th place, so we didn't make the finals.
Still, it was a lot of fun. We decided to keep the boat and donate it to
DeMolay so they can have a boat next year. We can easily modify it so it
will hold six to eight boys. Right now the boat is in winter storage at
Tim Anderson's farm. Next year, forget the paddle wheels. We're
going straight to propellors.
Click images below for details of the 2004 boat.
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Don Making Ribs
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Ribs On The Form
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Tim Adding Stringers
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Glueing on the Skin
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Looks Like A Canoe
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Internal Bracing
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Primed
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Painting the Bricks
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Ready To Race
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Click images below for details of the 2005 boat.
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Braced Up
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Add The Skin
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Caulk the Seams
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Looks Kinda Like A Coffin
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Good to Go
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Some Happy Paddlers
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Loaded
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And Waiting
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Some of these guys won't fit in the boat
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A missing paddler--he's on his honeymoon
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That wasn't so bad
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That doesn't look good
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That looks even worse
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A safe rescue
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Click images below for details of the 2007 boat.
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Taping the Seam
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Number 20 is ready to race
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And loaded for bear
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Nope, that's not us this year
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Not this one either
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Let's go racin'
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Crew is ready
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Get loaded. That water's not cold.
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And off we go
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That's determination
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And that's exhaustion
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Ram the Great White Shark
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Are we done yet?
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